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Chapter Text

WHEN THE DRAGONLORDS OF VALYRIA raised the first stones to their silvered city upon the great peninsula of Essos, the ancient and proud people of Old Ghis said they would not stay to complete their venture. That the poisonous fumes and molten flames which flowed strongest from the great volcanic mountains they called the Fourteen Flames, would consume these pale haired and bright-eyed foreigners. Or that the Ghiscari who have yet gone undefeated in their conquest of Essos in the centuries since, would have these up-jumped sheepherders yoked in chains as the Ghiscari had all other would-be contenders.

The Old Empire of Ghis did try of course, no other civilization had the fortitude nor the might to rise to the challenge. But the Ghiscari soon found humility in their destruction beneath the rage of dragonfire and the ruthless magicks the Valyrians brought to bear against them.

After five wars, spanning decades, the Ghiscari were the ones held in slavery by their new silver-haired masters and the Freehold of Valyria secured its supremacy on the continent and set about expanding it throughout the Known World.

Chapter Text

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The Blood Vohgyreon,

—RAGAER VOHGYREON, Lord Freeholder of Valyria. Dragonlord of the blood Vohgyreon, rider of Velgrix.

—his wife, ALYSTREA AGINARYS, also known as Alystrea of Lys, Rider of Mendrion

their children :

—ANTEROS, the heir to the blood of Vohgyreon. Rider of Nightcrawler

—VAEDAR, second son. Rider of Ryrzag

—twin daughters, RHENEIA and NAENYS

—GAEMMA, distant cousin and ward. Rider of Darkcry

—his mother, HAERA VOHGYREON. High Mysteriarch of the Temple of Onixa. Rider of Aorgul

his court:

—VIRYS MONDARYEN, commander of the Vohgyreon levies. Rider of Zerax

—ERIODEN QOHIAR, 1^st Marshal of Vohgyreon levies. Rider of Eryxys

    —his wife, BAESERA, lady attendant to Alystrea.

    —TAELOR, her son by Erioden

—her children by her late husband, VISEGARYS of TYRIA

   —DAESYSA, a maid of eight and ten, betrothed to Virys Mondaryen.

   —MAEGEL, a boy of four and ten, companion of Anteros. Rider of Draemthar (his father’s dragon)

—DORRAEN ARGYRN, juror

—AEMARR DORNALYS, treasury prefect.

—GALIAR GONAELLIS, famous philosopher, former tutor of Lord Ragaer who now tutors the children

—AURYS, notary and official archivist of the Vohgyreon

—LALYRA GONTARYS, mysteriarch of the Seven Spears, great niece of Haera. Rider of Hroth

—her half-brother, ARAEVOR VELTALOR, son of Laenyra of Veltalor. 3^rd Marshal of Vohgyreon levies. Rider of Tentherax

His household retainers:

—NAHERION, master of the Inner Palace

    —his nephew, TACAEN, page in service to Lord Ragaer

—VYNORAN CALTHEOS, captain of his palace guard

—GYLLYROS, arms-master

—MAERRAN, steward of the household

—ERLYNA, PHENINE, Lyseni maids in service to Lady Alystrea

—LAERYA, maid in service to Lady Haera

—QEMAHL NA MASHAZ, groundskeeper

—DRAQQOR ZO PUHLAR

—MNEHER, slave overseer

The Blood Belaerys,

—DAEMOR BELAERYS, Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Lord Archon of the Freehold, First of the Valyrians, Commander of the Aegium. Voice of Arrax Jentys. Rider of the great dragon, Urroth—his elder sister-wife, ERAMAERA, Lady Freeholder of the blood Belaerys. Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Rider of Gykdreon
their children,
    —JAEREMOND, Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Rider of Vyrless<br />
    —BEREON, Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Rider of Nyndrir,<br />
    —JAELYRA, Rider of Tarragor<br />
—his younger sister-wife, SAELANYS. Lady Freeholder of the blood Belaerys. Rider of Sygraxzys

their children,
    —AERALON, Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Rider of Zaldragar
    —VANARR, Rider of Nyssarion,
    —RHAESYS, Rider of Aerzador
—his cousin, LENGYR BELAERYS. Mysteriarch of the Burning Halls of
    —his wife, and youngest sister of Daemor, EASAIA. Rider of Sylmyra<br />
their children,<br />
    —HYREOS, voktys of the Temple of Arrax Jentys<br />
    —AEGON, Rider of Pyraegon<br />
his court,
—MAEGOR AEGNNIS, Primarch of the Aegium, Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold. Lord Freeholder of the blood Aegnnis. Rider of Zhyraxion<br />
    —his cousin-wife, NESAENYA AEGNNIS. Dragonlord of the Valyrian Freehold<br />
—MANYX BAELTALOR, treasury prefect<br />
—LAENAN GALGYR, 1st Marshal of his levies<br />
—XAELIAR NITHEON, 2nd Marshal of his levies<br />
—VIMAR ARRAEN, 3rd Marshal of his levies<br />
—CELRAEN, voktys of the Temple of Vhagar<br />
—MALINAR, loremaster and official archivist<br />
—his daughter, ELEHNAE, a handmaid for Lady Jaelyra<br />
—his son, GAERION, a tȳnegos of the Belaerys soldiery<br />
—NOHLAER, chief artificer<br />
His household retainers,<br />
—DORYR, eunuch master of the Inner Palace<br />
—MANAERA, stewardess of the household<br />
—BAHASSAR, scholar and chronicler. Tutor for the children<br />
—ZHAO RUYEN, enforcer of the household guards and bodyguard of Lord Daemor<br />
—RAEQ NA AZENHL, overseer of the slaves<br />
—HELYSHA, SHORA, TRIANNA, attendants of the Lady Eramaera<br />
—FAEYEL, YNELLA, NOREAH, attendants of the Lady Saelanys<br />
—DALERIS, page in service to Lord Jaeremond<br />
—MALYX, a Caraexon guard in service of Lord Daemor Belaerys

The Colony of Lys

—ZHATANA, a Summer Islander girl who was washed ashore of Lys

—BALLEO OSTYS, blade of the City Watch of Lys

—FYLLION, a sellsword apprentice

—AERIO DYNOYOR, a magister of Lys

—VELLYSHA, proprietress of a pleasure house

—her bodyguard, HARRAQUO

The Sect of Nine Shadows of Morzanys the Ashen

—MELGYR NOHTIGAR, High Mysteriarch of the Nine Shadows

—VOKTYS GLAERIS,

—VOKTYS HESELLA,

—VOKTYS NARINA,

—VOKTYS ARTHEOS,

—TARYEOS RHYON, acolyte

—SORRIS, acolyte

—DAERAD ARTARIS, acolyte

JAESI VALYRIHA (THE VALYRIAN PANTHEON)

The Fourteen Foremost, the Fourteen Flames, each jaesi claims one of the volcanic peaks that rings the Freehold as their own

—ARRAX JENTYS, god of gods. Father of Life. The Living Fire. Flame-Born. Eli hen izula ampa (First of the Fourteen), King of the Jaesi Valyriha. Brother-husband to Aegarax. Born of the Primordial Flame, Arrax rules Lavblenon hen Jaesi (Volcano of the Gods, central seat of the jaesi) at his sister’s side. He is called Arrax Jentys to acclaim his rulership over gods, beasts and man. He is called Flame-Born for being spawned by the Primordial Flame itself. He forged the Ember Eternal with his first breath, which is the essence by which all life is created and sustained. The sun is a crown upon his brow.

—AEGARAX, Queen of Earth. Lady of Blood. Goddess, sister-wife to Arrax. Mother of Ichor from which she perpetuated the continuity of life. With her brother, Arrax born of the Ember Eternal and her of Ichor, they were able to birth the other jaesi and craft the world.

—BALERION, god of death, of transformation and the final judgment. A Ruler of the Underworld. Lord of the Dead. Husband to Meraxes. Son of Aegarax, born of the union of Aegarax with the Void (the space between the beginning and the end). Alongside his brother Gaelithox, Balerion rules Trumanopon (the Underworld) presiding over the souls of the deceased evildoers and punishing their crimes in life.

—GAELITHOX, god of rebirth and the Hereafter. Ruler of the Celestial Lands. Brother-husband to Onixia. Born of the union of Arrax and the Void. Alongside his brother, Balerion, Gaelithox rules Lykstegun (the Celestial Lands) presiding over the dead who lived a good life, honoring them with eternal peace in his realm for their deeds of purity, virtue, bravery and honor

—ONIXA, goddess of sorcery and witchcraft, and shadow. Lady Keeper of Great Balance. Sister-wife of Gaelithox. Born alone by the Void, she was the third and last deity to emerge from the Void but unlike her brothers not by union of either Arrax or Aegarax. She is said to have been birthed to strike the balance between Balerion and Gaelithox and because of the elusiveness of her origins, she commands reverence from all even Arrax.

—VHAGAR, goddess of conquest. Lady of Victory. Keeper of the Courage and Strength of Valyria. The Protector of Valyria. Daughter of Arrax and Aegarax.

—CARAXES, god of battles and plunder. Lord of Carnage and Domination. Son of Arrax and Aegarax, cousin-husband to Syrax.

—MERAXES, goddess of the low arts. the Singer. Stormbringer. Gentler of Winds. Lady of Inspiration and Harmony. Daughter of Arrax and Aegarax, wife of Balerion. She gifted the dragons, with the gift of flight. She is the only jaesi always depicted as having wings – feathered and draconic.

—VERMAX, god of the moving ways and exploration. Protector of travellers and emissaries. The Herald of Jaesi Valyriha. The Voyager who guards the ways of travel and gifts adventure to those worthy of it. Son of Arrax and Aegarax.

—MELEYS, goddess of wise counsel and diplomacy. The Stratagema. Lady of Justice, Shearer of Deceit and Falsehood. Daughter of Balerion and Meraxes.

—SYRAX, goddess of the passions. Lady of Love and Sensuality, Wrath and Pleasure, Delight and Rage. Daughter of Gaelithox and Onixa, twin to Tyraxes and cousin-bride to Caraxes. Vaerylla, the Foremother of Valyria, is acclaimed as her half-mortal daughter.

—TYRAXES, goddess of the untameable wild and fertility. Tenderer of the Birthing Bed, Lady of Harvest and Seasons. It is said she took her first steps upon the land of her birth, it blossomed into golds and greens of the field. The land would sooner be called the Land of Always Summer. Daughter of Gaelithox and Onixa, twin to Syrax. 

—TESSARION, god of foresight and prophecy. The hand before every beginnings and all ends. He Of The Gateways. The Lord Diviner. Master of the Seeing Sleep. Son of Balerion and Meraxes, twin and brother-husband to Shrykos.

—SHRYKOS, god of vengeance and death. The Reaper. Lord Avenger of the murdered, wrongfully slain. Son of Balerion and Meraxes, twin and brother-husband to Tessarion. While his brother, Tessarion stands at the right hand of their father to peer through the lives of the deceased, Shrykos stands to his left. He is often depicted with wings like his mother which takes him on to avenge the wrongfully slain.

Chapter Text

City of Valyria, Capital of the Freehold. 4197 AF.

         The boy, Vaedar, was flying his dragon several hundreds of feet high in the clear blue, eastern sky above Valyria, the capital city of the Freehold. There was nothing more delightful than being amongst the clouds, soaring high above the worries of the ground below and climbing even higher than that with naught but his dragon as companion, Vaedar had come to find, to view some portion of the entirety of the Freehold.

     Scouring the vast heavens with the energetic flight of one’s own dragon, Vaedar plummeted through dewy clouds and had sunbeams of the blissful coast lay its kisses upon his face.

     Muñāzma was right. Vaedar thought with a thrilling heart. There’s nothing else like this. And his dragon could not have agreed more with him, judging from the tremulous hum that reverberated through her.

    Vaedar Vohgyreon was only four-and-ten years, old enough to have fulfilled a most sacred of Valyrian traditions; becoming a dragonrider. And so he had been for half of his years albeit Vaedar did not enjoy the pleasure of flying as often as he would like. Which was why as soon as his father had given them leave to return home on their own, Vaedar had decided to enjoy what little time he could steal away atop Ryrzag from there to their family manse.

   Only the dragonblood of Valyria – his lessons told him – had the favor of Mūna Aegarax to bind and claim dragons as their companions. And only those holding the highest rankings of Freehold offices were permitted to fly this close to the grand stepped Anogeion.

   Even though it was usual to see dozens of dragons, both wild and claimed, soaring through the skies above shining city, and marvel whenever they flew too close. Vaedar would not be afraid of them as much as he wasn’t with his Ryrzag. His mother would say that he flew with every bit as sated calm as Arrax Jentys upon his firmament.

   The wonder of seeing Valyria from this high up never seized its appeal. The thrill and beauty beneath him pulsed through Vaedar as he held himself in the worn cushion of his saddle. Ryrzag took to gliding freely for Vaedar to watch the graceful monstrosities of the fleet of dragons glittering in their flight with the high noon sun behind them.

    The sun was clear and the winds were cool on his skin, flinging short wisps of very pale silver hair back from his head, from his pale face.

    His dragon, the thunderous beast – named for the thunderstorms that ravaged the west coast – sang a low timbre of a roar that sputtered blooms of white hot flames from her maw which heated the clouds into mists as they flew through.

    Vaedar giggled at the light frizzle on him, patting the scaly side of his dragon’s white neck affectionately. He had missed Ryrzag immensely and he could feel the dragon return the same affections with another roar. Not flying with her as often as Vaedar wanted always left a pang in the boy’s chest and his dragon had reciprocated by her own display of elated roars when Vaedar had come to her in the dragonhold of his family’s manse.

     “Rystva, Vaedar!” Someone called in a whooping laugh and Vaedar turned his face to catch sight of his older brother aflight his own dragon. “Valonqar, stop smiling at yourself, you look like a twit caught in the storm.”

     Vaedar's enthusiasm of his first flight in many moons vanished at the taunt from Anteros.

     He narrowed a look at the sight of the golden haired boy, only a couple years older than him and who looked like Vaedar as only a brother would. Except his older brother was toned golden from his many hours leisured outside the confines of their family palace, unlike Vaedar’s very pale skin, a result of his much more sequestered hours indoors.

    This was the first time in weeks Vaedar had seen respite from his studies and when his father had sought to take he and Anteros with him to the Anogeion, Vaedar had seized it for the sake of flying his Ryrzag. He would not let his brother ruin this brief freedom he’d taken, whichever reason for his entertainment this morn.

     “Leave me be, Anteros. I am loath to fly as frequent as you. I do deserve to enjoy every single moment when I can by mine own self.” Vaedar frowned but it only made his brother grin even wider and Vaedar knew he was not going to have this peace until Anteros had had his way.

     Anteros flew his dragon close enough to Ryrzag, grinning with mischief at Vaedar. “Oh come now, Vaedar, it was only a jest. I am glad you decided to take your sweet time abiding Father’s command. You’re not always so amenable.”

     Nightcrawler was Anteros’ serpentine mount; slender, sinuous and strong, with scales of the deepest blues and darkest purple that the dragon could easily camouflage into the night hence why his brother had given his dragon that name.

    Vaedar’s Ryrzag on the other hand was one of the larger Vohgyreon dragons, old enough to have been left unclaimed since the death of its last rider – one of Vaedar’s now dead uncles.

    His dragon, heftier in size and had a more ferocious temper, was an even shade of bone white scales, ivory wings and a spiked tail that could pummel the side of a mountain in a swing. And though Ryrzag had been docile for twelve years, she had been riderless, till Vaedar had taken her for himself.

     “Yes well, it’s not going to become a habit. Not all of us gets to do whatever they want consequences be damned.” His brother smirked to that.

     “You had best enjoy it as well as needed, valonqar. And I have just the way for it. Since we are already on our way home.” Anteros’ light lilac eyes flickered with daring humor that spread a mocking grin on his face. A grin that incensed Vaedar each time it came on to taunt at him. “What do you say, Vaedar?”

    “What?”

    “Shall we see if you’ve got the reins where your mouth is? Fancy a race then? Give that beast of yours some merry sport before you shut her back in the hold for another year.”

    Vaedar took to the challenge quicker than he liked to have done, clenching his gloved hand to seize both reins in one grip while he pressed the other hand to the white scaly neck of his fierce Ryrzag.

    Leaning down and forward to ensue a command in the dragonspeak that was also his mother tongue – High Valyrian. 

    Ryrzag’s eyes, a deep and bright color of bleeding crimson that was not shared with the rest of her magnanimous body, zipped to the periphery to meet the eyes of the young boy astride her ivory-scaled back. She let out a sonorous roar in answer to his command and Vaedar grinned in agreement.

    “And what is the prize for this contest, then? For when I win, brother?” Vaedar asked into the wind between them, raising himself back into position and meeting Anteros’ gaze on the other side of where his older brother flew.

   “Boasting privileges. You can tell Father and whoever else you wish to, how you finally had me bested in something other than poetry and astrology or whatever it is the scribes are teaching you these days.” Anteros responded and patted his hip, indicating a dagger stashed to his belt.

     Vaedar did not have to be right next to him to recognize its fine make nor remember its significance. “And this.”

    Vaedar knew the dagger. Its hilt was finely wrought in Valyrian steel, chased in a spiral white-gold in form of scales and rows of sky sapphires marking each scale at the guard. Vaedar gaped at the offer and looked back up, surprised that his brother was actually putting such a prize in their contest.

    The dagger had been a gift from their father, made specially for Anteros on his recently celebrated sixteenth name day. 

    Vaedar had never been more envious of his brother than when Anteros had unsheathed the dagger and proudly twirled it as deftly as any other weapon. Vaedar had never been given anything as fine as that and he had coveted it since and his older brother knew this to goad him now.

   “Two laps about the Fourteen, straight through the Eye of Meraxes, by the way of the Temples and then homebound. Whosoever reaches home first wins.” Anteros declared and Vaedar did not miss the way his brother buckled the edge of his harness or the rising hackles of Nightcrawler.

     Already Vaedar could tell his brother thought himself the victor in this race. Perhaps he could be. They were both being lessoned in all the arts afforded the sons of a proud dragonblood; history and mathematics, logic and poetry, and the martial learning of sword, spear and battle philosophy and since they both had dragons to fly Vaedar and his brother were taken to learn of their draconic culture and Valyrian heritage.

     Vaedar seldom took to the skies on account of his mother’s restrictions while Anteros being the older and less mindful of such concerns constantly flew his Nightcrawler and was by all accounts the better dragonrider.

     Nevertheless Vaedar was determined to have this day, and that dagger. He imagined telling his lord father of his triumph over Anteros at dinner, boasting of his prowess in dragonriding even if it was as something trivial as a race and having his father finally laud Vaedar in praises and looks of pride.

    That rarely happened, not when Vaedar had such a brother as Anteros who outshone those closest to him in their father’s eyes.

    Emboldened by such hopes, Vaedar took hold of the reins tighter and yelled at Ryrzag. “Sōvēs, Ryrzag!” His white fiend, Ryrzag roared in answer, flexing her powerful muscles and fanning out the expanse of her leathery ivory wings, flapping them to push up speed with the winds.

    Vaedar heard his brother advancing behind him. Ryrzag being the older dragon knew well had to use the air currents of their peninsula, and had the advantage of a much wider wingspan even if she had not flown so often.

     However Nightcrawler was streamline and quick with maneuvers and a rider who had more recent capabilities of flying than Vaedar. But he also had his own advantages to employ. He may not have had as much time in the skies but Vaedar knew his dragon well.

    The points of light arced through the blue mantle of the heavens, as the two dragons dived into a race. The wind rushed at them, buffering and steaming as they challenged one another with short jets of flame. Vaedar steadied his position as Ryrzag ascended at a nearly vertical angle, desperate to intercept the other dragon as quickly as possible.

    As the dragons swooped past each other, Nightcrawler trumpeted with a short blast of blue flame that dispersed, and Ryrzag roared at such agitation.

     They turned and began to circle as if chasing each other’s tails, Ryrzag still slightly ahead the blue-and-purple dragon, who made no attempt to climb above. If he had, Vaedar would have feared Anteros was attempting to gain the advantage in getting ahead by attacking him.

    Vaedar sidled to the left, aiming for a twisting maneuver, urging commands and separating from the serpentine mount of his brother.

    The hallowed Fourteen Flames ranged ahead, smoke and volcanic ash stained the once white columns above them in a dense grey, veins of magma and liquid flames spewing and trickling like streams coursing down like water ways from the fiery peaks of the Fourteen.

    Built to the mountains’ faces were magnificent temple structures of white marble, black rock and red stone held up glassine, spired and topless towers and founded on obsidian steps that no doubt led even deeper into the core the volcano where its priests and priestesses went about their worships.

    Vaedar could feel the heat even from a sheer distance remaining between him and the volcanic reaches which bore temples carved into their faces and upon rivulets of cooled magma. He could also sense Ryrzag’s climbing anticipation as they approached. But Vaedar was suddenly unnerved.

    He started to recall the warnings from his mother and her forbidding them from flying too close to the Fourteen Flames and its resilient temples built upon their smoky, fire-spitting faces.

    As Ryrzag approached the wonderful, terrible scape of towering blackstone temples, Vaedar began hearing the clamor of bells and chants echoing from cavernous halls populated by a bevy of hooded robed acolytes and crimson garbed voktys.

    Vaedar looked out over the side of his dragon; the magnanimous edifice was bordered on left, right and central of the temples’ entrances by three statues.

    Aerex. Vaerylla. Draezar. Harbinger. Foremother. Protector.

    Irraenor, Vaedar's tutor, preached that their dragons were born from the incendiary hearts of the Fourteen Flames, fashioned as sentinels of their people and children of Valyria. The Fourteen Flames was motherbed of all dragonkin and as such was a place of reverent worship for the blood of the dragon.

     So why should I fear a place only natural to one such as us? The Fourteen Flames was for all intents and purposes, the most potent place in the Freehold and Vaedar was always intrigued by them but his mother had also instilled his fear of them as well.

     The voktys called the Fourteen Flames, home alongside the dragons who were always so drawn to these plains no matter where their riders held them; the wild ones nested, bred and laid their eggs beneath fiery caches.

    Arriving priests passing the temples of Vaerylla, foremother of the Freehold, paid homage and prayers to the colossal pair of statues depicting her transformation from mortal to Valyrian divinity.

    Even still a few hundred feet above the ground, Vaedar saw the stone hands of the three, one touching another in an unbroken chain. Decorative glyphs that was usually painted at the start of the new year now looked to have since been scratched out by harsh winds.

    People went from one temple or another, prayed wistfully, leaving tokens and gifts, to visit that paradise before they turned away to their own business. Everything glittered and sparkled as far as the eye could try to extend and see the entirety of Valyria. The shining city, the heart of a never-ending empire.

    “Getting scared already, little brother?” Anteros sniggered, taunting Vaedar with one of his crooked smiles as Nightcrawler gave a leaping gap into the lead, breathing a plume of flame as it glided past.

     Vaedar frowned, whipping the reins and saying to Ryrzag. “Faster!” and his dragon ever so attuned to him, obeyed. She split the air with the beat of her mighty wings, gusts of it buffeting Vaedar in speed.

    As Anteros made headway in the first lap and Vaedar following, he was sure of what the priests down below saw when they glanced up their temples; two errant boys dragon racing, with Vaedar’s Ryrzag dancing in arcs through the magma spits that sputtered from one of the Fourteen Flames.

   Vaedar felt the heat bring flushes to his face but he was grinning widely as the sulfur clung to him, steering Ryrzag out and after his brother. Anteros was only a mile ahead, nearing the Anogeion, but with Ryrzag’s wider wingspan and greater strength, they could catch up.

    “Too slow, little brother!” Anteros’s laughter carried into the wind, prickling Vaedar even more by the hearing of it. “Much too slow to best me!”

    “Come now, my fiend!” Vaedar jeered his dragon and Ryrzag answered with another jet of white flame into the air before he dipped his wings and took a drastic dive. Vaedar held his legs firm and the reins tight, his heart pounding ever louder in his ears than the wind was.

    Vaedar counted three long breaths before he let his dragon pull up, taking advantage of the buffeting winds coming from the west. His she-dragon released his wide pearl white wings just then and the winds took them up, high up and way ahead of Anteros.

    The Temple of Meraxes came into view, built in white obsidian stone, into the side of the first volcano. Six, three-headed statue of one of the chief Valyrian gods stood seneschal as pillars; each face a different shade of polished metal; crimson brass, black gold and gold iron. But there at the top of the temple was a cresting sigil of the great goddess whose voktys were specks from such a height as Vaedar flew.

    The Eye.

    Even now as his dauntless Ryrzag darted towards the glimmering structure that was unlike all the other glass and steel towers and magnificent manses and palaces, even its neighboring temples, the Eye of Meraxes was as if the metals fused to craft its magnificence pulsated with an almost incandescent light of its own. An aura of soft indigo like the moon was at night.

    Picking up speed, Vaedar wiped a drop of sweat off his brow, the ash was more black than grey on his gloved hand when he drew it back to look.

    He smeared it onto his riding tunic, gripping the harness of his reins firmer to assure himself. Vaedar lashed the reins lightly, speaking to Ryrzag while his eyes watched the Eye in both concern and concentration. The Eye’s lids spinning like a several dozen blades in a angle and speeding dance to each other. Here laid the true test of his abilities to best his brother.

  Vaedar held a keen consideration to the rotational and revolutionary pace of the glassine axes that fused into the Eye, whirring at opposing direction and at varying speed.

    He disregarded the heavy pang of trepidation swelling in his chest from strained breathing and the appearance of his fellow acolyte. Should Vaedar have his timing of his passage through the blades of each of the spinning  axes even by the barest inch wrong, then he would have to kiss his limbs farewell… or worse still, my head and that of my dragon.

    This was why only seasoned riders and veteran racers attempted this. And Vaedar, mere boy of four-and-ten was neither.

    It was a dangerous daring that even expert riders and seasoned battle dragon-generals would not have entertained the thought of. But Vaedar could only hear the laughter of his brother, Anteros. He could already hear he boasts about dinner and how everyone would look to Vaedar and wonder why he had lily livers in place of steel as his brother did.

   No he would not falter now. His Ryrzag was larger and fiercer than any in his family’s Hold. She would win him this race and that dagger.

    Ryrzag felt his resolve and pushed further, buffeting her enormous wings in a breath of a gale. She moved beneath Vaedar like a living thing of molten fire and scaled fury, her powerful wings cutting through the clear sapphire blue sky with ease.

    The Eye was in apparent view now. Twin towers of glistening dark obsidian holding up a craftsmanship of golden rings concentric to themselves, rose from the centre of the range.

    Towering, near scraping the clouds into its daring height with a gemstone even larger than a full grown dragon, was affixed to the centre of it, to pierce the clouds and guide a path from offsea with its iridescent azure gleam. From anywhere in the city and beyond, the shine of the Eye could be seen. This was one of what made Valyria unique to the other cities of the Freehold.

   Even from where they still hovered, the rings spun with such a speed that they sheared in a high note whistling motion. Birds and baby wyrmlings had been sliced to ribbons by only flying too close even if the spaces were wide enough for three full grown dragons to fly through. It was a dangerous route to take and yet he had to as per the rules of the race with his brother.

    Vaedar had to begin thinking how he would cross this hurdle and how with this Ryrzag would truly be uncontested with his brother’s Nightcrawler. There would be no doubt. With some brief moments to properly gauge each spin and turn of each of the three rings, Vaedar trushed his reins.

    “Gīda sir, ñuha raqiros!” Vaedar urged his mount. Her enormous, white leathery wings seemed to find a pace in the bestilled air.

    He watched with concentration and counted, watched and counted and watched again to be certain. And then he caught it.

   Already Ryrzag could hear the approach of Anteros and Nightcrawler. Vaedar connected with his dragon. And in the way his father had taught him and Anteros to communicate with their mounts without speaking, Vaedar did so.

    We must pass through the Eye, Ryrzag, without getting sliced. You can manage this, I know you can. You are the rage that speaks through the storm, you know the skies and I have seen the way. 

    “Ivestragī īlva sȳrje ñuha lēkia se Bantistyvagon!” His dragon gave a roar which split the sound in the air around Vaedar as she lunged ahead. Vaedar grasped the melding of their beings which had only waxed stronger than an iron vice ever since Vaedar had claimed his white fiend, letting the bond take forefront control of his rational mind.

    They needed to gather more speed with an ascent and then they dove through the Eye. Ryrzag tucked her wings to the scales of her sides like a thin sheath of membrane so that it seemed she was but a monstrously large lizard simply swimming through the air.

    Yet Vaedar noticed just as his dragon’s neck had just passed through, that each axes were doubly coupled and one twin was coming crashing down on where he perched on Ryrzag.

    Vaedar, desperately and filled with the high passions of his thrill and fear, he grappled both edges of his emotions into as much a rein as the one he held onto Ryrzag with, and thrust out his hand to command with the hum of blood in his ears.

    “Sagon nykeēdrosa!” 

    He felt a pulse leave his being, like a hush of breath that strengthened and gathered force to hold the blades that would have seared its way through him and Ryrzag’s neck, in place.

    The entire contraption was frozen in motion above and below the dragon and her rider who marveled yet felt elated as the former completely passed the Eye unscathed.

    The strain of his endeavor came upon Vaedar as soon as he allowed the power leave him completely and the Eye groaned back into whirring spins. The temples of his head throbbed and he felt slight ache in his arms but Vaedar paid it no mind as he whipped the reins to direct Ryrzag to begin the second lap of the race.

    That was close! Was it not, my fiend? Too close. 

    And yet Vaedar whooped in joyous elation as his she-dragon roared along her own victory. Vaedar looked over his shoulder, back at the gleaming Eye only to see his brother was still on the other side.

    He laughed as he saw the surprise steal the mirth from Anteros’ face away, as Nightcrawler hovered back from the curved silvern bladed arcs of the Eye, in the hesitation of his rider.

    His Ryrzag was even more garguatuan than Anteros’ mount so Vaedar felt that his brother should have no trouble transversing the obstacle. Not like he who still had to resort to sorcery to succeed.

    Still Vaedar whooped a sound of triumph, throwing his beaming face into the bright and warm sun that had revealed itself from behind clouds.

    I’ve done it! I have beat him!

    He then leaned down to Ryrzag and hollering through the winds. “Now keep to the head, Ñuha fiend!”

    And the dragon put its greater, pristine wings to great advantage and flew them towards the Fourteen Flames for the second lap while Nightcrawler tried to cover the air between them.

    Vaedar loomed closer to the Anogeion enough for him to sight a number of people walking through far off streets paved with stone and gold, kerbed with alabaster, topless towers and fair many-pillared manses and expansive courts of incandescent flowers were set about the ways.

    Many towers of great slenderness and beauty built of black stone and dragon glass and carved most marvelously rose under the gaze of the Fourteen Flames.

    There were more vessels docked in the port now soon as Vaedar was nearing the city’s coast, long cranes with triangular prows which the merchants use, delicate swan ships for journeying nobles and looming war galleys manned by liveried soldiery of the Freehold.

    Women and children ran to the sides of their cranes to catch a glimpse of the gilded triremes and to see who were in it.

    The gold sails flying from the mast identified them as either kin or honored guests of the Archon, yet the latter was more likely as a dragonlord would not transport his family by such a mundane means as ship when he had a bevy dragons to ferry them.

    Vaedar wondered how any one of the dragonblood could bear to be away from the skies and to refrain from reveling in the sights of the shining city even when they’d seen it before especially from such a view as the one he was getting.

    His own absence from it had only come as a result of obeying his mother and Vaedar loathed his absence from his dragon.

    However the golden-sail triremes took a different route, disappearing in the distance as it docked at the mouth of a lake that glittered through the midst of the city.

    Vaedar nearly toppled over, his urge to see it was so strong. It was an arcane-made lake dug in the shape of a dragon’s breath, and it meandered across three quarters of the city. Boats with small sails slipped across the waters in a place where sand and palms should have been.

    Vaedar remembered a reading say that Taryeos Mightspear had built the lake as a symbol of his love for his husband and that it was unlike any other in the Freehold. It shone like liquid lapis and silver in the sun.

    Vaedar grinned, feeling a swell of pleasant delight at the scenery but then Vaedar heard the cry in the north wind. He jerked his attention to the direction of it and frowned at the sight of his brother fast on Nightcrawler’s wings.

   Vaedar, cursed himself for taking too much time to admire the sights that he’d let his mind wander and forget he had a race to win.

    “Keep your eyes to the sky, Vaedar!” and then laughter whipped at Vaedar as his brother dove in front of him.

    Wind whipped at their hair and Vaedar urged his dragon to a faster pace to catch up. Nightcrawler was only a head ahead and they could easily overtake with the right curve. The sudden gust of hot air and spitting fire from the magma rivers told him that they were circling to the Fourteen Flames now.

    Vaedar steadied himself on his saddle then commanded Ryrzag for the right time to take advantage of the turn.

    Then he was in the fore yet he still heard Anteros’ laughter in the wind behind him. Vaedar gritted his teeth and began to pool towards his fore, some residual energy from the last time as the spinning Eye came again.

    The second time of using the spell on the Eye left Vaedar’s arms feeling like they were leaden with several weights and his head throbbed even more.

    The reaction was a norm that had been forewarned to him in his many lessons with his grandmother. The high mysteries exacted a toil on the practitioner’s strength so it was better to not do more than his body was capable of enduring.

    Vaedar could only hold the reins as he could not do more than that, leaving their course to the will of Ryrzag who already knew the need for victory over Anteros.

    And so far they were nearing that with every beat his she-dragon’s wings brought them away from the Fourteen Flames and now diverted towards their home.

    The capital city’s glittering thoroughfares began to slinker back and change to even more opulent houses, palaces for the dragonlords who ruled the Freehold with the steel of their swords and the flames of their dragonblood, manses for the sorcerer princes who came and went as they pleased.

    They paraded themselves in flowing finery of silver robes sleeved with embroideries of crimson and a headdress that spiked up from their heads when they tilted over to pray wistfully. Ahead of them had walked offerings of slaves, brought to the public altars.

    Vaedar could see his family’s palace on the western horizon looking towards the second of three mountains that had been raised away from the Fourteen and overlooking the Lake of Taryeos. It was then that something seemed to shift in his sight.

    He gasped in surprise as he heard Anteros again. This time his brother’s voice came traveling back to him from ahead. “Don’t think two cannot play at that trick.”

    What? How?  Then the guise cleared, like Vaedar had had his head below water and he was just seeing through the dripping and Vaedar realized with annoyance.

    An illusion! The distortion from real and conjured was subtle and so cleverly done that he had to give his brother some praise.

    He had not yet reached the city, Vaedar realized, the illusion of seeing the Vohgyreon palace faded like an itch to his eye and the real surroundings appeared.

   No, he was nowhere close to there. The Eye was just behind him. Anteros has fooled him in believing he’d made the second lap. Vaedar hissed and flagged Ryrzag as realization dawned.

   He spelled me?!… I should’ve known he would use the excuse of mine own to cast.

   The roaring of multiple wings against the wind and overshadowing the trickling sounds of the clear water spurting from the well-designed draconic statue.

    Vaedar already saw that he had lost the race. Nightcrawler was already alighting onto the sky yard of their family palace. But it did not help that Anteros’s laughter made the sting of his victory sharper.

   As Ryrzag swam the winds, resigned to behind her kin, closer to home at a slower pace now, Vaedar started to the grandeur of the palace that his ancestors had raised and passed down the several hundreds of Vohgyreon generations till it was now held by his lord father and would eventually pass to his brazen brother.

   Not many of the other freeholder families had such a luxury designed to their homes. Well not many of them were prominent enough to have the means to construct such dramatic improvements in their homestead.

    The palatial home of the Vohgyreon family had been built from one of the few mountains this deep within the homeland, flattered by huge gold poplars and fiery-red dragon’s bloom. A mountaintop that had been hollowed and expanded to further the structures of the palace over the many generations of Vohgyreon residence in the Freehold.

   The sky yard was of such vastness in size that it might have been used as port for one of those triremes Vaedar had seen earlier, reaching out as a semi-circle ledge floored in Valyrian black stone and terraced in obsidian.

    Usually it was reserved for the use of only dragonriders of the Vohgyreon family, for landing and flying off directly from the grand manse of the palace into the open skies instead of going all the way down to the Hold.

    As the boys made their swift descent, the details of the Vohgyreon palace became clearer. Vaedar’s eyes took in the glowing wonders beneath him – sheltered palace of brass-stone and obsidian walls and hanging gardens, all with slanted roofs and cupolas, and glassine black floors crisscrossing the palace grounds and leading into trails that carved into the rocks of the untouched parts of the mountain and up to the Hold where their dragons nested in their caverns.

     The smaller buildings for the household servants and separate slave quarters were connected by a slim, short bridge snaking up to the grand manse, and a waterfall straddled two of them, the water tumbling down from the heights and turning into mist before it could hit the ground into a vast pool of water in a ravine that seemed as ancient as the mountain itself.

     Vaedar saw that a woman had walked out of the sprawling garden that connected the grand manse to the sky yard.

    She was in flowing finery of blue-green silks, with a veil of blue gems curtaining down the shining waves of her silver-gold hair. A lump formed in Vaedar’s throat as without fail he knew the woman was none other than his mother.

    He hoped that Anteros, being already there on the sky yard, would take some caution in explaining their errant arrival to their mother, that he would not throw them further down the lava pit of trouble they were already in.

    But his insipid older brother was yet still to come down his triumphant high spirits to take notice of the waiting presence of their mother in the sky yard.

    “I win yet again, little brother.” Anteros hollered as he descended. “Mayhap I might have to enter for the next Rōvēgrie Tymptir. I’m old enough and none among my peers have yet to see victory to merit better skill than mine. I would be honored the new year’s champion.”

    “You merit nothing but humility, brother.” Vaedar snapped back. “Father would never let you enter the games. Not for the mere chance that he would loose you to its brutality. And you might have your tricks but you’ve no brutal bone in you for the games.”

     Would that  he cared much that Mother has threatened fire and brimstone if we went dragon racing again. We can only hope that she would let us attend any games or festival.

Chapter Text

   Alystrea, at the sound of wings stirring the air above the manse with a force of a whirlwind writ small, raised her face to see the dragons belonging to her two young sons, just hovering above the sky yard of the palace.

   She heard her eldest, Anteros rear and hail his blue-and-purple mount, Nightcrawler to a landing a few moments before his younger brother.

   Even without telling or being close enough to find proof of smog and soot on their riding clothes, Alystrea knew what mischief they’d just been about. She could see the unease and guilt carved on her little Vaedar’s face.

   It gave him away even before he touched down on the yard with his even larger Ryrzag. While Anteros did not seem to be bothered that she as wrought and just about to box their ears for their disobedience.

   Yet Anteros seemed to finally spot that he was in trouble, seizing whatever boast he’d obviously been slinging at his younger brother, as he dismounted his dragon. But it was much too late as the scowl that now owned Alystrea’s face.

   Vaedar followed his brother in snapping his dragon speed to a slow steady landing, the gusts of wind from their dragons’ descent and weight on the stone floor of the yard, fluttered her veil and gown with hot air but she did not step away and instead held her stance in annoyed authority.

    Vaedar looked even more anxious as he saw his mother’s expression darken even more as she realized that this had been a race.

    Alystrea did not wait for Vaedar to disembark his mount before she hurled her tirades at them. “How many times have I told you not to go racing?!”

    “We were careful.” Anteros defended too leisurely, a;ready on the ground and petting the scaled neck of his Nightcrawler. Vaedar followed suit after a startlingly still moment as if he was contemplating not to dismount and face her.

    “By Arrax! Look at the states of you both!” She harried at them. Alystrea took them both by their faces and rubbed at the smudges of ash and sweat.

    Did they even think that they would get away with this, that flying near and about the Fourteen would not leave them returning a collectible of smog and ash.

     The keepers who worked the Hold, tending to the needs of the family’s dragons, rushed forward to take the reins of her sons’ dragons and guide them to their nests within the Hold.

    They would ensure that Ryrzag and Nightcrawler would be fed and rested after their riders had obviously tired them out in their escapade. No other were better familiar in handling the dragons besides the dragonriders themselves.

    Anteros had once taunted Vaedar that he would be made a keeper when Vaedar had yet to have a dragon of his own. Alystrea remembered that it was that jape that had made her little Vaedar, not more than six years old to storm into the older nests within the Hold and claim his Ryrzag.

    As the keepers heeded to Nightcrawler and Ryrzag, a pair of white-garbed slaves hurried past her to take the gloves from Vaedar, peeling their riding gears from over their tunics which was also soiled by ash.

    Alystrea wrinkled her nose from the stench from stench which her sons had carried from the magma rivers that rushed from the Fourteen Flames. She had half a mind them both from ever flying again.

   There would be guards keeping to the entrances of Hold, for the most of a moon or more, to punish both he and Anteros for this defiance. Alystrea would instruct their tutors to keep them both busy with even harder studies.

    Yet Alystrea also doubted anything could dissuade Anteros from taking his dragon for a fly by even under punishment. Not unless their father would be the one denying him.

   Even then Ragaer would relent for him. And Anteros would never learn.

   Anteros may have turned his sixteenth year two moons past, a man grown, to have his rights as a dragonlord withheld by even their father. But Vaedar was only just fourteen – not yet old enough to defy his mother and risk her annoyance yet Vaedar had done worse when he had claimed the very large and very temperamental Ryrzag at only five years old.

   And now one look at Vaedar’s face, she knew that he would be very much saddened by it. Her baby boy always felt more aggrieved that she never let him go flying as well and oft as Anteros was permitted to.

   How could she tell him that she still harbored that terror of hearing that her six-year-old son had delved deep into the Hold and confronted the most volatile dragons in the Vohgyreon Hold.

   Vaedar wouldn’t understand why she was so peeved at them for doing what was so natural to them.

   Her children weren’t ordinary children like the commonfolk or even the low nobility of Valyria or of anywhere else in the world. Just as she, her husband and all others closest in blood were no ordinary kin.

    Their families were very exceptional, powerful and gods-blessed, so unlike many and most as the rest of the outside world. Their lessons with tutors and readings with their grandmother would have ingrained the pride and potence that came with being dragonbloods.

   Alystrea knew that being of dragonblood, their blood was as restless and demanding as the beasts they flew. And the Fourteen Flames called to them just as strongly as it did all its other children.

    It should have been enough to assuage her. However Alystrea had emphasized that the boys were both still too young to fly their dragons so close to the spitting volcanoes that ranged the western edge of the city borders.

   To be Valyrian was to be born of fire- a blood akin to their dragons; the Fourteen had touched them with great power and an even greater destiny that no ordinary mortal folk could bear to uphold.

    The world was theirs and none challenged it lest they be damned. Yet with all of that, it did not stop Alystrea from fearing for her youngest son. He was still young and though the bond with Ryrzag, she had been assured by their keepers, was strong she still had those flashes of despair and terror tear at her whenever she saw him atop his mount.

     “But muña, you should have seen it! I bested Vaedar again. What is it now, the ninth or tenth time?” Anteros chortled as he expertly alighted down from Nightcrawler which roared but calmed under his touch.

    “Shut up, Anteros. Do you want Mother to feed us to the hatchlings?” She heard Vaedar hiss at Anteros who did not seem to be perturbed from his high spirits.

    “And you did not beat me.” Vaedar turned to her and emphasized. “Anteros tricked me… he cheated, Mother!” Yet Vaedar could not stop himself from defending himself against Anteros's prideful boast.

   “Cheated, ha! You casted first, Vaedar. I only beat you by using it at the right moment.” and that ensued another bout of quarrel from the two, that Alystrea had to call them to silence before it would turn to tussling as was wont to happen more often than Alystrea wold have liked.

    Both boys stopped and turned to their mother as she got to them and asked.

    “Where is your father?”

    “Kepe?” Vaedar seemed oblivious and he turned to the east cholstery tower of the grand manse with azure leaf-shaped windows that overlooked this side of the palace, expecting to see his father pacing within its luxurious confines.

    They had left home together earlier in the morn, their father had been wanting to test their capable flying skills. But before he could do the latter, when they’d been outside the Anogeion, Vaedar's father had been called away, leaving the boys to get themselves home without trouble.

     Vaedar looked to Anteros who replied just the same to their mother. “A message came to him from the Anogeion. He said something about the Archon calling a gathering. Father had to leave immediately.”

    “We are sorry, Mother. We did not mean to worry you. It was all just a bit of fun; Vaedar had not been out in a while.” Anteros surprised them both by being the one to apologize first.

    Alystrea snorted and reprimanded with a stern softness. “A bit of fun could have had you both killed. You need to be careful. I did not say you could not go flying; but never so close to the Flames and never in a heady thrill as comes with racing. I’m quite certain even the voktys would not condone children crashing to their deaths over their heads, disrupting their devotions with their reckless fancies.”

    Anteros smirked, bright purple eyes twinkling even at the macabre picture painted by their mother’s words. “Neither did they did like that Nightcrawler may have snatched their noon offerings from the altars for his lunch.”

    Vaedar heard the gasping horror from their mother and shook his head, nudging his brother with an elbow for such a ploy.

    “He jests, Mother. He didn’t do anything of the like.” But Anteros’ smirk had permitted to a chuckle which Alystrea did not find amusing from her mischievous firstborn.

   Alystrea wore an exasperated smile towards her elder son. “You two go wash the stink off you. I will not have the smell of char at my table.” She waved them away.

   Alystrea of the Aginarys, wife of Ragaer Vohgyreon of that dragonblood family, could not help but give up her momentary irritancies for both her sons' disobedience and their latest escapade that would have terrified any mother.

    Her younger one, Vaedar, with his very pale hair, more silvery than gold, now stained from ash and soot from his perilous flight to the Fourteen Flames, wore a disconcerted frown he was usually wont to have directed at his brother these days.

   Anteros, having a head of golden hair and always possessed in a riotous curls much like his father’s, had his own evidence of their escapade in singed cloths of his tunic and chafed hands.

   Flying without gloves. Alystrea shook her head at his recklessness. Anteros had always been more daring that it was nigh reckless and worrisome.

    Her lilac eyes went over the rest of them then as they departed, arguing still on their race, glimpsing their boots and ash-stained tunics.

    She wondered if they had reached the volcanic reaches on the farthest edge of the city. If they had then she would unquestionably have a word with the keepers who guarded the hold and let them take their dragons out. It would have been better than to broach the wrongdoing with her husband who would next to nothing curtail their sons, least of all Anteros.

   Alystrea did not want to think about how Anteros’ humor about stealing from the temple altar may have stopped her heart for a moment or the forlorn look that  had been visible in Vaedar’s so pale indigo eyes.

    Her little one did not like losing to his older brother. She decided that she would have to have a special treat for the boy for dinner, to assuage him.

    Alystrea turned on her heels and went the way of her sons except she diverted in direction whence they took stairs to other parts of the palace.

    She hoped they would cease their quarrel before they got to the residing quarters where only a turn away was the nursery of their babe sisters.

    The interior of the grand manse was a lavish replica to the outside expanse of the palace with its gilded porphyry and azure fixtures that were the prized work of Valyrian art represented in tapestries draping walls, colorful mosaics on floors and plinths adorned by busts of Vohgyreon ancestors cut with an elegant hand in polished dragonglass.

    The walls of its many halls were adorned with painted murals and ensconced mosaic from relics of the past conquests and victories of past Vohgyreon dragonlords even though none were any recent of three generations.

    Alystrea hadn’t been the slightest bit intimidated by the splendor and luxury of this crowning jewel of the illustrious Valyrian family she had been married into for twenty years.

    Her own family, the Aginarys, was just as decadent if not wealthier than the Vohgyreon which she had married into.

    Even if her birth family were looked upon differently by her husband’s because the Aginarys were not native to city of Valyria. She herself was called Alystrea of Lys in a snide manner for being born and raised in a colony - and that one in particular - and not in the Valyria herself.

    Everywhere about the grand manse, lit into a decadence of gilt porphyry and azure with floors of elaborate frescoes, the Vohgyreons never failed to prove their possession on all that they surveyed by stamping their mark on everything. 

    Alystrea knew the Vohgyreon pride first-hand from the man who was her husband for these many years and the father of her children.

    Alystrea passed the corridor of empty rooms – there were quite a number of them seeing as Vhael Vohgyreon, an Archon in his time, the palace’s initial owner had raised it in hopes to make it as opulent enough to rival the Anogeion and host his freehold of dragonlords but that hadn’t been so.

     If Alystrea could recall any better, Vhael had suffered a worse fate for his hubris of seeking to cage the even prouder freeholder families.

     She started to hear voices coming from the nursery where her twin daughters slept through quiet days and wailed through nights.

    Alystrea walked into the nursery to find a hunched figure in rich red and gold gown and with familiar beaded pearls in wrinkled shaky hand while the other held a book where the aged lady was reading from.

   “ ‘And the latest nights under the lights of the bountiful stars were as fell as they were fair, the lovers hook in each other’s love and sorrow of their hearts…’ ” Alystrea recognized the woman as Haera Vohgyreon – mother to her husband.

    The aged woman had made it a tradition to read to each of her children when they were still suckling babes in their cribs, and Alystrea didn’t exactly approve of the sort literature the woman recited to her grandchildren.

     Her mother-by-law read of macabre hymnals from one of her template scripts. But Alystrea had come to know her place when it came to her husband’s mother who had been notorious for her severity and virulent judgments in her youth.

    Alystrea had rarely won over arguments with the woman since she came to be Haera Vohgyreon and her husband was ignorant of the difficulty it brought her.

   “Goodmother, I didn’t think you would favor the midday with your readings.” Alystrea said announcing her presence. Her mother-by-law spared her the briefest of glances with rheumy amethyst eyes, the tight curl of her wrinkled lips evident of her own irritation to Alystrea herself.

   “I would’ve made my usual time had the incompetence of your servants not prevented it. My tonics were brought in an hour later than usual. You would do well to get rid of that slave girl.”

   “She’s not a slave, Haera. Baesera is noble lady of a proud family and she’s been wed to one of your son’s loyal Marshals for years now. And before that to Visegarys of Tyria, no less.”

   Alystrea heard Haera’s disbelieving snort as she neared the rosewood crib that had been doubled to contain her two slumbering baby daughters. Her Rheneia and Naenys. Observing them peaceful with no care in the world was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

  “Visegarys was a lout of common standards who seized his place in fame in a time of war; anyone would achieve more with such luck. Besides the girl’s married to a Tahrnaen and they’re no less better than the Bartalor to which she was born to. What’s so proud or noble about being of either?” Alystrea paid her mother-by-law no comment on that. She was never easily satisfied by anything Alystrea had ever done anyway.

   Haera had surrounded Alystrea with her pick of attendants when Alystrea had first arrived from Lys and Alystrea had kept them for Haera’s sake. But the years since had taught Alystrea that she need not please the cranky old hag anymore.

   Alystrea had felt the same for each of her children when she had first held them in her arms. Her mother-by-law had not been of likely faith that Alystrea would give her son any heirs.

    Unduly reminded of the death of one child in the cradle, two stillbirths and a decade long barrenness before Alystrea had finally had Anteros. It had been even far worse with her husband being the last of the Vohgyreon male line; losing brothers and uncles in the last of the Ghiscari Wars.

    She remembered Haera preaching that there was but a singular reason she’d chosen Alystrea as bride to her last surviving son; the fecundity of her lineage. Not minding that the Aginarys family was one of few Valyrian families who could contest the YiTish royalty in wealth.

    And now that she had borne her Anteros, Vaedar, and only a four moons past her daughter, Naenys and Rheneia, her harridan mother-by-law had been quick to troth the girls, half a year babes as they still were, to their brothers.

    Not an uncommon act but this, Haera had enacted without so much as by leave of the children's own mother. Haera had dominated over the household and seized the reins over Alystrea’s sons’ education, humming that no one was better suited to teach them the practice and history and destiny of their blood.

   Vohgyreon blood. Alystrea had thought with mere derision but she had let the old woman taken it in hand. So long as Haera didn’t limp herself to taking her daughters as well, in some years time.

    Haera rose from where she sat, the glittering gold nubs on the bodice of her sky blue gown matching the jewelry which dangled from her wrinkled neck.

    Her silver hair had long since turned white in age and styled in her usual braided heap at the back of her head. Yet Haera’s dark purple eyes remained as fiercely disapproving as they had been the first time Alystrea had met her.

    “I heard the boys making a fuss outside.” The tone implied in her words were inquiring as she looked at her daughter-in-law and closed the book she held.

    It was remarkable that the old woman could imitate the accent of a Lyseni noblewoman even when Haera had never lived there for more than a brief holiday.

    But Alystrea knew Haera neither did it to please or endear her, quite the opposite. Alystrea had worked years to dissolve the accent of her tongue so that she may fit in properly with her new life and family but it seemed that would never happen.

    Not with her mother-by-law and her husband both treating her like she was not as Valyrian as they just because she had not been born or raised in the capital.

    Alystrea nodded as she started to rock the crib with the start of Rheneia’s cry so as not to wake her sister. “They have only returned from flying. By the Fourteen, I fear they take such pleasures as means of competition.”

    An amused smile curled at the end of the elderly woman’s wrinkled lips and she replied, “They’re brothers, Alystrea. With such little years apart from them, competition is all that will drive them. The same had been for mine own sons.”

      And where had that gotten them? Ashes, gone and forgotten in the wind. Alystrea wanted to add.

    But Alystrea hated reminding her mother-by-law of the loss of her children. Not when Alystrea herself knew the pain of such losses and could not fathom what it would feel like to lose not one but five children. She wouldn’t wish such painful grief on any mother.

     In Valyria, children were born with a purpose predestined by forces greater than themselves, yet when grown are beholden to the burdens which their great and terrible existence forced upon their shoulders.

    Alystrea’s people bore all that the other peoples of Essos worshipped; divine and dread. Beauty and terror. It was that duality that turned most of the world for and against the Valyrians. And worse yet, the Valyrians could care less. Their pride was as vicious as the dragons they were kin to.

     “I need have words with my son. Where is he, tell me?” Haera grunted as she took the gilded cane that she had leaned against the chaise near where she had sat and started to leave.

     “He is yet to return. A messenger from the Archon came whilst he was out with the boys and he had to attend to it.” Alystrea said wanting to spare the old easily tired out woman from the stress of the stairs.

     Haera sighed loudly. “I fail to understand why he willingly answers such shallow summons like a mongrel called to heel. His father never gave such headway, groveling up to the Archon and those other lords freeholder.”

     Alystrea shook her head. Haera was always like this when her husband did something that his father had not.

    It made Alystrea wonder if Haera had really wanted Ragaer to be the son to inherit at all. Did she see the way Alystrea’s husband carried on his father’s legacy and feel dissatisfied by his laxity?

     “It is because we are trusted allies, that Daemor Belaerys needs him frequently. Ragaer is his dearest friend, and also his cousin, should it not be a good thing that the Archon would trust him so? A good thing to the prospects of this family that he be most leal to the Archon?” Alystrea replied the grudging Haera.

    Haera scoffed unperturbed by the mention of their familial ties with the most powerful man in the known world and muttered as she left the nursery. “I’ll have the boys practice their recitations in the meantime till he gets back. Send word once he does.”

    Alystrea wanted to counter her words and stop her from straining her sons to weary fatigue with her rigorous lessons. But that would surely ensure a slew of reprimands that Alystrea was hindering her children’s education in their Valyrian identity.

    Besides it would be something that would distract her aged mother-by-law from pestering and criticizing Alystrea with each turn on other matters. And at the very least their grandmother was better able to quieter her sons’ tirades.

    Alone, now in the nursery, Alystrea started up a humming lullaby to her daughters, Rheneia and Naenys.

Chapter Text

Colony of Lys, Valyrian Freehold.

      Zhatana had been shivering from the downpour of the beating rain from the night before, long after morn had broken. She was not certain if it had been the night before or the one before that, that the rain had come so heavily. She couldn’t remember much nowadays except the endless floating across the wide salt water before Zhatana had been washed ashore to this noisy, blindingly bright place.

      The strength in her limbs had given out days before and Zhatana could hardly recall how she had gotten from the abandoned sands of the beach to well into the commotion of the lively and salubrious land of the city.

     The light and noise of the city disoriented Zhatana even more than she expected it to have. And it wasn’t because she was new to cities; the Summer Isles had been littered with populous and expansive enough towns and cities and yet this was different than any she had ever seen.

      Zhatana felt her guts continue to twist within her whether from too much saltwater or the realization of her destitution so far away from home, she could not know.

      Her eyes aches and her throat was parched as a desert and exhaustion had made every movement she now made was a an excruciating reminder of the countless times she had struggled to stay afloat the shattered plank for what seemed like days. And now that she was on land, in a foreign and strange city albeit, Zhatana had her mind set on her need to not stand out and survive.

      Her hope for the former was made with each day that passed when she gathered what she could from about her. A leaky basket in the arms of a hawker would give her a cut of fig cheese or grilled mushrooms. Water she could now get from  a public fountain though she would have avoid some of the other urchins that littered those parts of the harbor.

      Zhatana gained her strength back but she soon realized that staying unnoticed was bare nonexistent in this strange and nameless land she had been washed by the sea into, where amidst the people, Zhatana would never so much as stand apart as a butterfly would in a flock of birds.

      For even with her complexion feeling sallow and pruned, her dark brown skin, wildly curled black hair and round gilt eyes was a sight so peculiar to her environs.

      Zhatana was too exhausted for tears that rushed to swim her eyes, knowing from her stark distinction to the rest of the world around her that she was alone and so very far away from home.

     There were so many things for her to curl up in he corner of the street and cry about – so much loss from the misfortune of the shipwreck that had deprived her of everyone she ever knew and loved. But there was no use crying over the past. All her family were but memories now, their faces naught but ghosts trudged underneath the waters of the Summer Sea and the words they had spoken to her only remained in the hoary flashes of her sea fever.

     Zhatana would never see Ebonhead again nor hear her mother’s songs to the mornings. She would never have her mother bathe and prepare her for a suitor.

      She would never see her young brothers grow and have families of their own. They were gone now, lost to the depths and leaving her to this strange place.

      For the first few days of her revival, Zhatana had vomited a mixture of seawater and heaved in breaths of the cool breeze that sifted through the island’s abundance of fruit and palm trees. Then she had recovered and she had been ridden with a wrenching hunger that she had to strive for some food.

     Each morning Zhatana left the alley she slept in the night before; dirty, destitute and hungry to soothe her despair of being alone with the lovely sights of the grand city.

      For it was grand and beautiful; the City of Lys. Lys the Lovely as was praised by the sailors at the docks. Even from the docks Zhatana cold tell from the skyline that stretched out inland that Lys earned such praise deservedly, the stench of brine and the stink of stagnant rainwater and rotting fish troubled her lesser each passing day as she left harbor and beach for dry streets.

      There were temples and gardens, crowding the city’s lush waterfronts, buildings made of smooth alabaster that shone in the sun.

       Zhatana counted many gardens lush with the care of its owners, fountains that streamed from statues of beautiful naked women in pink marble. The bridges that connected the various quarters of the city with one another were arched over clear blue waters in stone that gleamed like moon opals at night, and wooden footpaths continued into vaulted stone causeways on the other side of the winding canal.

     Luxurious manses lined one side of the canal, ringed in domes of polished bronze and raised to twin each other's edifice by the same hand.

     Gold and silver blinded everywhere Zhatana dared the sun's angle to glimpse and everywhere else were lush gardens that dizzied her with its very vibrant colors, some of which she had never seen on a flower before. And the streets were clean even though there were most times filled with more people than it could possibly be able to sustain.

      Sometimes someone was kind enough to give a half-eaten plum or burnt olive bread that was supposed to be fed to the pigs. Zhatana would’ve thanked them, not wanting to shame her mother by her ingratitude.

      But the people living in this foreign and strange place spoke a baffling and confusing tongue that usually sent her scurrying frantically in fear especially when a few of them had tried to ensnare a chain onto her wrist as she took their gift.

      It was the last time Zhatana accepted one of their favors, she had sworn when she’d ran off. And Zhatana made sure to be watchful and show more hesitation and scrutiny to what went about her, never to sleep in one place twice in a row.

      It was easy afterwards to spot that there were differences to the people that inhabited the gleaming city and not just that they merely looked stranger than the dark skinned and round, golden eyed people of her homeland. It all surmised to Zhatana as those with chains and those without. The people looked even stranger than the girl expected people to look like. These people had skin paler than cream and flushed with roses, and their eyes…

     Zhatana marveled at their very pale skin that flushed like roses in cream and shivered away from their startlingly bright stares. Brightly colored their eyes were, of purple, lilac and a blue as pale and wondrous as the sky above.

     Their women dressed in flowing gowns of silken blues, blush pinks and deep reds that went off their shoulders and cradled their bosoms while their slaves gathered the trains behind them. Both men and women kept their hair falling in waves of moon pale silver or the fairest of sunshine golds, the latter beneath jeweled veils and headdresses to set them apart.

     Zhatana might have been too young by many accounts but she knew beauty when she saw it. They were the most beautiful Zhatana had seen. Beautiful and terrible.

     It terrified her as worse than the sight of many weighed under shackles, worse yet than see that some of the chained sometimes looked like her kindred; and even wore than terrible horned beasts that had only once lived in the tall tales her father told her and her brothers but had now seen living proof when she had seen the creatures flying above clouds like sparrows in the spring, on her first night after the shipwreck and every night since.

     Zhatana thought it was because she was dirty and smelled like the alley she slept in where the innkeeper poured rancid water used to clean out fish. She understood nothing and was frightened and lost heart from it.

      She knew no one here. Zhatana wanted her mother. She needed her warm kisses and kind touches as she bathed in the river. She wanted to hear the familiar tickling sounds of her sisters laughing and singing as their father played a harp. But she was alone.

      Leagues and seas away from anyone who would know her or where she was from, she was as strange to this part of the world as it was to her. Even no longer lost in the middle of the Summer Sea, Zhatana was still alone and lost. And this would bring tears to her dreary eyes, every night but no tears would fall

     Unbidden those despairing memories of her last moments with her family flashed through her mind. It was more frequent now than usual that these memories came to her and Zhatana would shut her eyes muttering under her breath in a song her great aunt sang to her and her sisters whenever they had bad dreams.

     Zhatana wasn’t dreaming but she didn’t want those painful pieces of her past. She wanted the good ones. The good ones would give her the warmth of her home in Ebonhead where this strange land would not have her.

     The people of Lys who passed her where she had learned to linger in the fringes of crowded areas, would look at her curiously, shake their head and whisper words that did not sound affectionate.

     They didn’t and wouldn’t comprehend her pain, despair, anger and resentment. But that they owned this city did not mean they would own her too.

     When night had finally fallen, Zhatana, being desolate and hungry, staggered back to the dirty alley where she had found and used old, empty sacks for her makeshift bed.

    As for food, it was by the second wane of the moon that Zhatana found to source what food she could from the streets and gutters of the strange and lovely city. Whatever moldy bread or tossed out seafood the innkeeper deemed to toss out had kept her from going to sleep starved. She was not sure if the innkeeper knew she slept in his back alley. She did not think he would care as long as she gave him no trouble.

     With what luck of a meal, Zhatana would soothe herself with slow and dry singing of the same songs she recalled her mother sing to her and her sisters at night during the harsh and brutal summer heat when on some nights, they would have eat cold soup against the hot fevers from taking them.

     The song comforted her as she curled up into herself on the sacks of potato, smelling the putrid rotten fish stink over her. Zhatana sang and she wept, the tears finally falling down her dark cheeks till she finally fell asleep.

     Zhatana did not know how long she had been indigent on the streets of the  but it was long enough for her to start to recognize some words the strangers around her spoke even in their odd foreign language.

     Though even more haggard and wearing the same torn, salt-draggled dress that she had been in in so many days since reaching Lyseni shores, Zhatana knew she had to strive to get her food even if the meager handouts she managed to beg or steal weren’t enough to replenish her now thin and gaunt body.

     She was still grateful as it slowed the racking pains of her stomach from hunger. Zhatana also incurred more anger than sympathy from some who always jerked distastefully from her either because she was dirty and haggard or the fact that she was so different from them.

     And there were other children living off the streets as she did. They did not feel as complacent to sharing her with the benevolent stall keepers who gave them food. They threw stones at her and jeered when her mind went reeling and she fell fits. They ridiculed her with names she was now accustomed with bits and pieces of their language.

     It was on one of those afternoons and her fourth moon of being in the city had gone by,  Zhatana now knew something of the city and how to avoid attentions and get by with her meals.

    The language was still foreign but she had started to pick up little meanings that helped her on her way to waking free the next day and sleeping another night without a chain around her neck.

     Zhatana had gotten a way to get the favor of a wineseller man she had helped prevent his sack of lemons from being picked from a hole made by a street urchin. She had been rewarded with her first meal in days and since Zhatana had been going back to keep the rats from getting into the man’s fruits stores.

     The wineseller was a stout man with scarce hair on his head but wore seven rings in his hands. He made barrels of fruit presevrat8ves alongside wine. He had two apprentices, two serving girls and two men for slaves to his service who guarded the store.

     “Where are you from? We never see any children as dark as you, without a collar and a master at the end of the leash.” The wineseller had asked her on their first meeting. Zhatana had caught his roving eyes running up and down her small, starved body.

     Zhatana knew little of what he was asking. She said in the same curious language in the same way she had practiced in the past three moons. “South,” it was still strange, the sound and feeling of the new language had on her tongue.

     “South, you say? Sothoryos? You don’t even sound from around here. Wherefore far south? Lorath? Norvos? The Summer Isles most like. Yes you do have the look.”

    Zhatana shrugged her shoulders and the baker saw it would do little good to keep questioning a child that did not speak much of his language. He gave her two more meatpies which Zhatana wrapped in a cloth she tied around the waist of her dirty and half torn dress.

    “You needs be careful in these streets, girl. Girls your age and your looks draw the eyes of many a queer and dangerous folk.” The fat baker gave her a cup of water for her thirst and waved her away.

    Zhatana nodded at him and headed back out to see what she could get from open handed rich folk before she went back to her alley. It was better to linger in the lavish part of the city, richly dressed merchants and wives of noble magisters were wont to descend to the streets for a leisure walk.

     Zhatana took a turn too early or too late, then tried to compensate by cutting through an alley like a narrow chasm between two tall buildings. After she had taken several turns Zhatana caught the rancid smell of something dead.

     She screwed her face. Even after some months trekking back and forth through the city, she could still get lost. Zhatana turned a corner and staggered against a wall as pain blinded her. She then felt rough hands grab hold of her arms.

     Zhatana opened her eyes to see an older boy. He was twice her size with dirty fair hair and wicked eyes. The dirt that smudged his face gave him the appearance of having a beard, making his young face strangely cruel. Two others jerked her away from the wall. Zhatana yelped as one of them twisted her arm.

     The older boy smiled at the sound and ran a hand through fair hair that was smudged with mud and grime. “What are you doin’ here, rat? You lost?” His grin broadened and Zhatana saw a few broken teeth that told her a lot of what was soon to happen.

     Zhatana tried to pull away but one of the boys twisted her wrist and she gasped, “No.”

     “This here streets are mine, rat. You hear? I don’t like rats scurrying about my feet without my say.”

     “I think she’s lost, Fyll.” The boy on her right said. The one on her left elbowed her sharply in the side of the head and the alley tilted crazily. "Better we show her the right, eh?"

    “I–” Zhatana muttered, slightly stunned, cold dread stole its way through every channel of her body making her shiver and what words she wanted to speak to get tapped in her throat.

    Fyll’s expression turned murderous. His hands grabbed her shoulders painfully. “Did I ask you a question?” he shouted, throwing spit in her face. Zhatana threw her face away, squirming and he liked that.

     “Did I say you could talk?!” He slammed his forehead into her face and Zhatana felt a sharp crack followed by an explosion of pain.

     “Hey, Fyll.” The voice seemed to come from a hair’s breath aside from her face. A hand pointed. “Well, well, look at this.”

     Fyll looked down at the bony curve of Zhatana’s neck, at the tarnished brass chain that held onto a dark colored stone as round as marbles and twice as large. “Where did you steal this, rat?”

    “I not steal.” She tried at the slippery language, grabbing at collar. The last piece of her life before Lys had somehow come out from underneath her dress. It was all Zhatana had left from home. The only thing that had survived the shipwreck save herself.

    “It’s not gold or silver but it looks pretty fine for a rat to have.” The boy named Fyll was inspecting it, his grip on the chain had tightened with want that it started to strangle at Zhatana’s throat and she choked.

   “Do you know how much we could sell it for?”

   One of them said with much interest, his eyes never leaving Zhatana's neck. “Probably more than this rat is worth to any one of the pillow masters. Enough to get me a fine hat and belt.”

   “You?” the other boy countered, miffed to be left out of the potential profit. “What about me?”

   “What about you? The last cut we made, you wasted it on useless stories across the waters.”

   “They are not useless stories.”

   Fyll chided with a degrading voice. “They are if they are not putting food in our bellies or making us look better than the rest of the rats like this one.”

    By this time Zhatana had managed to blink her eyes free from the tears and she could see Fyll raising the blue stone to the sky to peer at it through sunlight. He seemed fascinated by the radiance that permeated it as Zhatana often had.

     Fyll had a dreamy look in his eyes as he held it, turning it over and over in his dirty hands. A slow horror was dawning on Zhatana through the haze of fear and pain.

     As the two voices grew louder before her, Zhatana began to feel a hot anger inside. She couldn’t fight them, but she knew if she got Fyll’s hold off the chain and made it into a crowd she could lose them and be safe again.

    Suddenly both of her arms were free as one boy tackled the other into the wall.

    Zhatana sprinted the three steps to Fyll, grabbed the collar by the strap, and pulled. But the boy was quicker than Zhatana had expected, or stronger. The collar didn’t come away from Fyll’s hand. So she was jerked to a halt, a burning chokehold around her neck and Fyll was pulled to his feet.

     Zhatana’s frustration and anger boiled over. She yanked the collar off her neck and threw herself at Fyll. She clawed madly at his face and neck, but he was a survivor of too many street fights to let the smaller girl get close to anything vital.

     One of her fingernails tore a line of blood across his face from ear to chin. Then he was against her, pressing Zhatana back until she hit the alley wall. Her head struck brick, Zhatana gasped for breath and only then realized she had been screaming all the while.

     He smelled like old sweat and rancid oil. His hands pinned her arms to her sides as Fyll pressed her harder into the wall.

     Zhatana was dimly aware that he must have let go of the stone as he used both his hands to battering her.

     She gasped for breath again and flailed blindly, knocking her head against the wall again. Zhatana found her face pressed into his shoulder and bit down hard. She felt his skin break under her teeth and tasted blood.

    Fyll screamed and jerked away from Zhatana. She drew a breath and winced at a tearing pain in her chest. Before Zhatana could move or think, Fyll grabbed her again.

     He bludgeoned her up against the wall once, twice. The back of her head resounded in series of ricocheting agonies, Zhatana smelled something metallic in his nostrils and felt something drip to her shoulders.

    “Little bitch bit me!” Fyll said quietly, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened.

    “Get off me,” said the boy lying on his back.

    Fyll’s expression twisted and his face went a livid red. “Bit me?! You stinking dark rat!” he shouted and swung a clenched fist to her face.

    Her head whipsawed back and forth, caroming off the wall. Then he grabbed Zhatana by the throat, spun her around, and threw her to the ground. Her body was almost too numb to feel the hard stone floor underneath.

     She looked around, barely seeing through the dizziness, Fyll breathing heavily and clutching his shoulder.

    The second boy had gotten to his feet from where Fyll had earlier beaten him to. Now he was looking in her direction, stunned. Zhatana stared numbly at her hands, bloody where debris of the stone wall had pierced the skin.

    Zhatana tried to get out of the way without doing any more damage to her frail and aching body. Fyll’s kick caught her in the stomach and sent her sprawling into the wreckage again, splintering it even further.

    That was when Zhatana heard the noise, and everything seemed to stop.

   “You there, stop! City Watch!” A new voice shouted. A heartbeat of stillness was followed by a scuffle and a flurry of pattering feet. A second later, heavy boots pounded past and faded in the distance.

    There were times when Zhatana found herself dreaming of her parents alive, dancing and singing under the bright full moon.

    In her dream, her and her family had not risked the trip from Ebonhead to Naath, their journey for a relative's wedding had not happened. They would not have been aboard the ship and the ship would not have been caught in a violent upturn of storms that led to everyone but her to be consumed by sea.

    And for a few moments Zhatana had relief from the great blanketing grief that was constantly crushing her.

   She hugged them and they kissed the tears of foolish worry from her cheeks. Zhatana sang with her sisters, and for a moment everything was perfect. Perfect.

    But she always woke up, alone in the dark by the alley of a dirty backstreet. Then Zhatana would remember everything, like a wound ripping open. They were dead and she was terribly alone.

    And that great weight that had been lifted for just a moment would come crushing down again, worse than before because Zhatana was not ready for it. Then she would lay on her back, staring into the dark with her chest aching and her breath coming hard, knowing deep inside that nothing would ever be right, ever again.

    She remembered that ache in her chest where her heart was beating so fast and then the light around Zhatana blackened out.

Chapter Text

    “All is written as you have said, Āeksio.” Naherion said as he placed the final ending to the missive that was being dictated to him by his lord. He stood by edge of the cavern bath, waiting as his lord swam the short distance from one edge to the other before Naherion handed the stone tablet to Lord Ragaer to look over.

    If it were not for the hovering lights in the earthen bath chamber, Naherion would barely been able to see. The mists curling from the scalding waters was enough to hide Naherion’s hands even if he raised them to his face. And that was not to say something about the heat within.

  The bath chamber was a natural chasm coursed from an inlet of a natural spring that was heated on its passage right over the magma that snaked through the capital in rivulets of rivers from the Fourteen Flames.

   Yet it was nightly that Naherion found himself tracing the steps that led deep into this chamber, knowing this was where he would find his lord at this time of the day. It was his daily habit, just before supper would be set for the family.

   “Yes, this will do.” Lord Ragaer spoke in a voice that deepened more in the echoes of the bath chamber. Naherion nodded and handed his lord the steel-tipped quill which Lord Ragaer pricked a finger with, and with the drawn blood put his signage to the paper.

   “Replicate a few these to be sent to the right offices by Dorraen’s own hands. I will not have the some underlying remarks concerning the authenticities of them should they arrive by slave or messenger. Would that the Archon rely more on less traditional means of courier.”

   “Yes, āeksio.”

   Naherion met the lord’s violet eyes at the sighing sound that escaped him. Lord Ragaer dipped himself fully in the heated waters, swiping should length hair from his angular and well structured face.

   “I needed this after my lot today. I was thinking I would linger down here for the rest of the evening. How’s that sound to you, Naherion? Though that would be asking a lot from your tolerance of the heat.”

   Naherion smiled, moving his shoulders. “I would be glad to remain with you if only to have you attend to much of your works while we’re at it, ñuha āeksio. Otherwise I would surely be the one being thrown to the Hold for keeping you lazy.”

   The chortling sound came across from somewhere to his left where Lord Ragaer had dived towards. “By my kind mother or my sweet wife?”

   “Either and both.” it would be the first the two women would actually agree on something for once, Naherion would have liked to add.

   “Indeed.” was all that Naherion heard back. Naherion used the rest of the silence that ensued to scribe the replications that his lord had just commanded. He found the dark stone slab cut into the corner where he always did and sat, pushing back his wide sleeves to his elbows to free his hands

   Soon, Naherion heard the splashing sounds as his lord clambered out of the bath. Naherion waved the slaves who carried wrapped cloths and perfumed oils with which they attended their master with.

   “Anything of note happen in my absence, Naherion? I heard some remarks of some misbehavior about my sons?” Lord Ragaer’s voice came closer to his hearing and glancing up, Naherion saw that he was now dry and garbed in a dressing robe.

   Naherion arranged the papers and rose from his seat. “Yes, ñuha āeksio.”

   He started with a patter of anxiety stopping him momentarily, knowing that the Lady Alystrea would once again not be pleased that she wouldn’t be the one telling her husband of the activities of their children.

   But this was his duty as master of the Inner Palace. Asides from seeing to his lord’s personal needs, first and foremost, and those of the Vohgyreon family, no other besides him was permitted to be brought to the confidence of the lord except by leave of the lord himself.

   Naherion could not keep things from his lord, not when it had been expressly demanded likeso. Not even when he wanted to.

   “The same  matter that I was accosted by my own mother upon my return? Or are the two of entirely different concerns?” Lord Ragaer asked as they exited the bath chamber and climbed their way out from the Hold, taking steps carved from the stones of the Hold’s very own interior.

   “I would guess the latter, ñuha āeksio. Though I cannot be too certain.”

   “Then speak about the one you are most certain of then? I would not like sitting for supper ignorant of what new trouble my wife would want me to judge over which she could very well leave me out of.” The lord always sounded a mix of exasperated and peeved.

   On one, Naherion could not blame him for. The lord’s sons were habitually in some scruples or another as sure as a new day comes after night. Young as they were, it was expected for boys to be restless enough to find what little entertainment by new mischiefs yet Naherion had never known a more chaotic two than the sons of Lord Ragaer.

   Naherion would know as he’d been here near the longest amongst those who served the family. He had been born here a free man, the servants’ quarters to sires who in turn had been born in servitude to the Vohgyreon family.

   He had lived and loved this palace perhaps just as much as its lords cherished their home. It was Naherion’s home too and he was bound with as much steadfastness and loyalty as the first of his ancestors had ever been to the Vohgyreon dragonlord of his day.

   Naherion’s grandsire’s grandsire had been the first to swear blood fealty to the blood Vohgyreon, first starting as a simple page. Though that Vohgyreon dragonlord had been a terror to all, Naherion was content that his descendant, Lord Ragaer, was nothing like him and so was much easier for Naherion to serve.

   “It has to do with the young masters getting themselves in a race whilst you had commanded they return home as you attended the summons to the Anogeion.”

   Lord Ragaer let out a sigh. “I thought that was it. When the message came from the template of Meraxes, not so soon as I had landed home, I knew they had been up to no good. Something about disrupting worship hours and dishonouring the goddess. Was it Vaedar then?”

   Naherion shook his head. “No, pōs āeksio. It was the two of them.”

   They had left the Hold and been welcomed through the Lord Ragaer’s own private chambers, without the taking the long route of the way across the the sky yard, the garden and the half of expansive walk through the palace.

   The Vohgyreon Palace was daunting edifice unchallenged by what few other dragonblood families could construct in their vanity. The entire lavish compound was a testament of the glories, both bright and dark, to which the family were vaunted for generations.

   The palace attendants were dressed in neat white linen garments, only being marked apart from the household slaves that milled about on some purpose or another, by the bronze torques around the necks of the latter. Everywhere about the palace, lit into a decadence of bronze and porphyry floors and frescoed grand history of the dragonblood family.

   The Vohgyreons had never failed to prove their possession on all that they surveyed by stamping their mark on everything.

   Naherion stepped aside for Tacaen to proceed taking off the dressing robe from Lord Ragaer.

   The boy was more a youth than child and was diligent in attending to Lord Ragaer as his page and bodyservant. Like many who worked the Inner Palace, Tacaen had been selected, by him, for his looks which - though he was as lowborn as Naherion - could be taken as one of high nobility and also because the boy was Naherion’s own nephew.

   Perhaps if the boy did well, he could serve either of Lord Ragaer’s sons in the same capacity Naherion served their father, whenever they ascended and in Naherion’s passing.

   Tacaen adorned Lord Ragaer instead in robes with hems stitched with purple poplar leaves, wrapping the satin cloth it was cut from around his waist. Naherion approached to flip and address his lord’s dry and oiled hair from underneath as his nephew swept the fabric over the shoulder where a gold pin the size of Naherion’s fist, clasped it there.

   Naherion had served Lord Ragaer since he had been a boy of seven and his lord had been just three-and-ten, and had watched the struggles and happiness experienced by the family for all these years.

   He was there when his master’s father had arranged his marriage to the Lady Alystrea whose family had garnered its cast wealth from being long-standing governors of the prosperous daughter of the Freehold, Lys.

   Naherion had known that his lord had despised the arrangement and yet for the sake of the family, having losing more than most to put an end to the Ghiscari Wars, had since had its star falling in the Anogeion, Lord Ragaer had had to accept.

   Naherion remembered the disbelief and contempt with which his lord had carried to the altars of the Temple of Syrax to wed his foreign bride.

   How despairing that old Haera Vohgyreon had granted a match with her only surviving son to a woman whose family had all but been dispatched to a colony of the Freehold and who had accrued their place in the Anogeion by such lesser means as coin instead by fire and conquest as their dragonblood was writ with.

   The years that had followed their union had been tremulous to say the least and pitiful for most for Lady Alystrea who had had to prove that her loyalty to her husband’s family was beyond her devotion to her blood. And the lady had showed she was a spectacular woman; brave, beautiful and intelligent. Not the fragile flower of the Aginarys the Vohgyreons believed her to be.

   Naherion left and departed from his lord’s side as Lord Ragaer made his way to where the family took their evening meals and Naherion went to the directions of the kitchens.

   It was not long way to go before Naherion heard his stomach groan as he passed the kitchens, whiffing the aroma of grilling smoke, spices and the mouth-watering freshness of one of many Fera’s delectable pastries coming from the oven.

   The cook, a low common woman by name of Fera, was one whose boasts of being the finest cook from the peninsula to the Summer Sea, having trained in the kitchens of an Empress of Leng. It had been that boast that had ensured that Fera be among the household which Lady Alystrea had brought with her to her new home.

   Naherion entered the kitchens with an earful of Maerran, steward of the lower household who ran the kitchens as everything else in his life - with a bad taste on his tongue.

   While Naherion served Lord Ragaer, Fera fed to Lady Alystrea’s many indulgences, Maerran was Lady Haera’s man true to his very soul and he mimicked much of his mistress’ dispositions to his underlings.

   Tonight it was a slave boy who had tripped and spilled a tray, who got the worst of Maerran’s tongue. Naherion pitied the boy but knew better than to get in between Maerran and his way of running things. Naherion would never hear the end of it and for certain, the viper would return the favor.

   The servants scheduled to serve dinner for the family walked in and out, in haste, with silver platters of steaming, delicious smelling food; roast pheasant swimming in a honeyed sauce, peppered mushrooms, heron stuffed with figs on the side for black ginger rice, broths of crab and monkfish which the Lady Haera’s preference to have for cool nights like this. Pitchers of chilled amber wine, freshly squeezed apples spiced with myrrh, went alongside the dishes.

   Naherion was more than halfly tempted to tarry a bit and have something or two to satiate himself but he had missives to see delivered. Yet when he felt new warmth from his hand, Naherion gifted a grateful smile to Fera for the baked pie he found wrapped.

   “My thanks, Fera. I would have for certain fallen over my feet if I had only passed through here without a taste from your kitchen.”

   She laughed a sweet sound, winking. “Then have your feet return you on this way again and I will have something sweeter than blackberry pies.”

   Naherion followed behind them yet took to the left where a corridor opened to lead a different part of the palace.

   The cholstery tower was where Lord Ragaer worked and met with his offices but that would be locked due to the lord’s absence. Naherion still went that way only so far as a door that presided going up the tower.

   He passed his hand over the smooth glassine surface of the door which slid open as smoothly without so much as a creak, to reveal an interior laid with desks and chairs to a side. Pricks of flame the size of his fingers hovered in glass entrapments overhead with the presence of one other than Naherion, still working.

   “Master Dorraen, it is good I caught you still at it.” the much older man within was hunched over his desk, gilt hair showing streaks of grey tied back from a face hardly young but still wearied by age and obligations.

   Naherion often pondered what hefty cost it took in years for a juror to acquire, endure and keep his place when in service to a dragonblood family. What with all the legal upheaval that came in navigating the tussles of power which the dragonlords of Valyria danced in.

    Once Naherion had asked Dorraen that very question and the hunched juror had laughed and mused incoherently before ushering Naherion out to leave him to continue his work.

   The chambers was reserved for those employed to the Vohgyreon family’s interests in their capabilities in the stately proceedings of the Anogeion; jurors, prefects and notaries. Only the Lord Freeholder and a select few in his trust had access to these rooms lest some secrets exposing to Vohgyreon internal affairs fell through their rivals and friends in the Anogeion.

   Dorraen raised his face, violet eyes peering over the scrolls of some legal affairs treatise, he had been reading.

    “Ah, Naherion. I have been expecting you for a while. I had half a mind to leave here and have you hunt me down.”

   Naherion went to him, presenting the missives, the original and duplicates all. “The Lord wished these sent out without delay and by your hand alone.”

   That brought a frown to the juror’s already creased brows. “Does he now?” the old juror commented with a huff as he took the papers and looked over their distinct seals. “The Anogeion and the Belaerys family, I was indeed looking forward to addressing but the Template of Meraxes?”

   Naherion held back a chuckle when Dorraen looked at him in oddment. “What’s this about? We hold no patronage to that template, nor would the Lady Haera permit such straying from her sect.”

   “Naught of any importance, Master Dorraen. It is but recompense to assuage the voktys’ vexation for the misconduct by the young masters today.”

   Master Dorraen drew a heavy sigh of whether relief or aught else Naherion could not determine. “Which of them? They’ve committed so many of late. Since their lady mother has withdrawn to nursing their new sisters and their lord father ever taken away, they seem to be feel indebted to cause as much grief to us.”

   “They have been left to their own devices. They need to be occupied more.” the juror continued to mumble as he rose from his desk.

   “Should that not be the duty of their teacher to keep them busy? The lord would not be pleased.”

   “And as sure he would not be pleased with his own sons when he hears that they have sent yet another tutor slinging a litany of curses as he handed in his resignation.” Dorraen said and Naherion could almost hear the amusement in his tone.

   Naherion rubbed his forehead at that. This was the third tutor the young masters have sent us by their antics. Naherion had believed this one would last since it'd been near a year since his arrival. “When was this? That makes it the third tutor they’ve disposed off without due end to their contract.”

  “Nohraenos was no doubt a fine scholar but not the most patient to endure Lord Anteros’ pranks or tackle Lord Vaedar’s arguments. No need to worry, I’m already in search for a better replacement.”

   “Nevertheless, I will inform the Lord.” Naherion departed then, going back the way he had come and heading towards the dining hall.

   There were three rooms reserved for the dining purpose in the palace – one on each wing of the palace, open to an accompaniment of a garden. But with one being much grander and larger for the entertaining of a larger number of guests as it adjoined to an open view of the gardens and sky yard.

   The family had their dinner in the one in the east wing and it was still exquisite in its design and interior adornment as all the rest of the palace but dampened to a more tranquil and warm atmosphere as it was used of intimate family gatherings.

   The embellished double doors were pushed in as the servants brought in their trays with synchronized movements and Naherion saw the figures lying on their bellies on silk cushions, an arrangement of flowers surrounding them.

   They were all here excluding the infant girls who would be having their wet nurse taking care of their needs.

   The Lord Ragaer Vohgyreon, the patriarch of the Vohgyreon family laid at the centre. Naherion leaned forward, peering into the light, and he saw the face of Lord Vohgyreon. It was hard and fine, with a deep brow and a bladelike nose.

    His purple eyes were hard as stones, and they showed little white around the irises.

    His mouth was thin and wide with a slight downturn at the corners, and he had a close-cropped beard and mustache, which, like his hair and clothes, were the palest gold. In age, he appeared to be in the early years of his fourth decade: still at the height of his strength. There were lines on his brow and on either side of his nose, and the gilt glow to his skin had a thin look to it.

   To his left was his mother, Lady Haera, dressed in her usual gloomy black-red with embroidery of red flowers and the familiar jeweled headpiece she was never seen without. The elderly woman always had scared Naherion with her ever-piercing lilac eyes and sharper tongue that spewed curses generously about.

   The lord’s right and opposite his mother was the young master Anteros, eldest son, even from the distance he looked like an undisturbed reflection of his father, with the same tousled gold hair near as bright as the flames of a hearth, a stubborn chin and sharp intelligent purple eyes.

   When the young master smiled, a dimple flashed on his left cheek that often sent attending maids and slave girls whispering to themselves in giggles and blushing each time.

   It was obvious the statement which Lord Ragaer was making clear by moving the position of his wife farther away from him. There had been a cold estrangement between husband and wife for years now. Which had come as a surprise to the entire household nor those of other Freehold families who bought such secrets from each other’s household slaves.

   It was a surprise because there had been a time, after a cold start to their union, when Ragaer and Alystrea had found themselves in love that it would last forever and had been the envy of many of the high nobilities of the Freehold. Yet now it had devolved back to a cold tolerance of one another.

   Naherion remembered the first time he had laid his eyes on his master’s bride. It had been the day she had arrived at the Vohgyreon palace – she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen and the boldest despite what they said about her being of soft, demure Lys.

   She had subsequently proven that she wasn’t to be intimidated even by Lady Haera. And with the children she bore to the family, no one could detest her presence as much as before.

   The younger son, Vaedar took to his mother as much as his older brother took to their father’s; in both looks and demeanor. Vaedar had a complexion and silver hair so pale it was almost translucent as the dragon he flew, with the only color to him were his very dark indigo eyes that was constantly in a state of a glare or forlorn expression.

   Everything else was Alystrea; the delicate mannerisms and austere looks that seemed to deepen his father’s disregard for him in favor his firstborn. And that only made Vaedar more desirous of his father’s approval but he would always be second to his older brother. At edge of the family was a young slip of a girl in vibrant blue gown that matched a shimmer with her silver-gold hair bound in silk ribbons.

   She was Gaemma, an orphaned cousin of Lord Ragaer. the young lady was always quiet one - even moreso than Vaedar - around the boys and Naherion had thought it to be shyness to be around strangers albeit relatives. But Lady Gaemma was just that; a girl of very few polite words, poised and content to be overlooked.

   The word was that she would be wed to Lord Anteros as soon as the young master turned eighteen however Naherion knew that Lady Haera would never permit such far-off union of their blood. And now that Lady Alystrea had provided the family with daughters, it was only permissable for the young masters to marry their sisters.

   Just as it was now, judging from the mood of supper Lord Ragaer had no doubt brought up the racing and the report from the Temple of Meraxes and it seemed the brunt of his reprimand had fallen on his younger son instead.

   Anteros was ever the perfect son, gifted in all things martial to the praise of his Valyrian blood; swordplay, sky archery, dragon diving and any other reckless pursuits he took to fancy. Vaedar was the more reclusive son, excelling in their schooling – to which delighted the old Haera enough to dote on the boy partially.

   Even so, Lord Ragaer would never rebuke his eldest boy even as the younger one defended truthfully that the idea of racing had been Anteros'.

   Lady Alystrea sat on the other side, Vaedar to her left and the elder one Anteros to his right, and she intermittently glanced at her youngest son to make sure he was eating.

   Recently the boy was always negligent to food and was looking leaner and paler, and Naherion disbelieved he would now not after getting disparaged by his father.

   Naherion reached the wide entrance only to pause at the door as almost if she had sensed his presence, his lord's wife, Lady Alystrea raised her heart-shaped face and fixed sharp azure eyes that always seemed to have a spark of intrigue in them, upon him.

   The gaze stilled him where he stood, haunting and penetrating. Yes Naherion could still revisit the memory of seeing the Lady Alystrea on her arrival as his lord’s bride, and it gave him as much dread now as it had then.

    Commons like him, though bearing the trademark looks of Valyria, were nothing like these high nobles of the dragonblood.

    They were all of them children of Vaerylla and her brother-consorts, but the dragonlords were the inferno bursting from the mouth of the Fourteen and Naherion was but the cooled embers barely flickering by the waterside. And he was faced with that truth every moment Naherion had lived and served them.

   Naherion went no further, with such a warnjng given to him in mere glances not to interrupt their supper. His concern, would remain distant for now, as they went to young Vaedar.

    Interrupting a family meal with word of yet another wrongdoing by the young masters would assuredly heap on the younger boy. It was not worth putting him in even worse mood and less appetite nor was it braving Lady Alystrea's scornful attention his way.

   So Naherion turned about, taking out the blackberry pie from his pocket to settle his stomach, deciding to give his lord word of a new tutor soon after he was done with his pie and what sweet others Fera had promised him.

Chapter Text

   Alystrea left the quarters where she had just put Vaedar to bed and watched him moments after he had fallen asleep to her lullaby, marveling at how so much like Ragaer he looked in sleep and yet her lord husband was constantly slipshod of her sweet Vaedar as the evening’s supper had shown.

   Alystrea had already checked on Gaemma, her husband's ward, and left the twins well-fed and slumbering before going to see Anteros was in bed. Her eldest's stubbornness to stay later than any of her other children was easily curbed tonight as Anteros only had to be reminded that she was not to be further aggravated after his reckless showing of a race.

   She kissed him good dreams and made her walk towards the eastern wing of the palace where er husband’s private chambers were - half an expanse away from her own.

   Alystrea had not shared the same privacy with her husband in years despite the singular night over less than a year’s turn past when Ragaer had stumbled into her bed. A visit that had conceived their daughters, after his mother had tired both their ears off in her noncommittal remarks of how it’d been long since Vaedar’s birth and the Vohgyreon lineage needed more bolstering.

   Her husband’s quarters, being on the other side of the palace, was conjoined to his luxuriantly furnished cholstery tower where Ragaer held audiences and tended to Freehold affairs. There he had the luxury of pursuing more of his night studies of the stars without interference from either her or his mother.

   Not that Alystrea minded to have him as far from her as they both wanted and left to her, Alystrea would not seek him out now if it were not necessary. However she must so she gathered the folds of her gown and followed the inflamed dragonglass to lead her to its counterparts.

   The chambers was larger than any other in the palace, having been designed and furnished to meet the extravagant tastes of the head of a dragonblood family.

    The walls and floors met in a symmetry of smooth black porphyry, the fixtures were strong and expensive white wood, cushions of soft griffin feather. Curtains of overflowing richness of crimson draped the pillars that held out the terrace for the sweeping view of the entire palace an beyond to the rest of the Freehold.

    It was a view that Alystrea clearly missed but was gladdened to feel relieved that it was joined with resentment for the memory what these rooms held for her.

   Alystrea had married into the Vohgyreon family for gains she herself would only ever account as her children but try as she might to forget, Alystrea was also married to an influential man whose services governed the vast and ever expanding Valyria. And that took most of Ragaer’s hours that their family could go weeks without sharing a meal with him in attendance.

   Yet when he does attend, he does so to act callous and impartial to his son.

   On entering, Alystrea found her husband lying to his back on cushion pillows piled to the floor.

    He had disrobed from his supper attire with only a half-tunic that glorified his strong thighs as one knee was pulled up to hoist a lazy hand that bore a singular piece of Valyrian jewelry - a bejeweled torque crafted in the finest detail of a winged serpent with two pairs of black rubies and bleeding amethysts for eyes.

   The encased flames that had led light to her path, now joined the others that held themselves above Ragaer’s head, crowning him in a nimbus of gamboge light.

   “Come to lay some rebuke on me, have you, Alystrea?” Ragaer spoke in a dry tone without a look upward. The interest in his work clearly overshadowing the significance of her stray to his side of the palace.

   “Go on then get it done with. Perhaps then I can get on with trying to find a suitable appeasement to the Template for your son’s nuisance.”

   “There was more than one son of ours up there. Vaedar wasn’t alone in that pursuit. Anteros even attested to that but you would not hear it. Not of him.” she challenged with a sour look.

   “Anteros would know better than to tamper with the Eye of Meraxes.” her husband countered.

   That stoppered her vexations. A silvered brow pushed up Alystrea’s forehead. “The Eye?”

   Mayhap it was the sudden aghast that had filtered into her question that finally drew her husband’s gaze from the papers he held, to her her face.

    His violet eyes shone with a burning that could not be mistaken for gleam of the hovering flames. “I know you enjoy the belief that I am partial to one son over the other, that my blind favor for Anteros puts Vaedar in the dimmest of tolerance. I do not.”

   Alystrea scoffed and moved to the where a carafe had been placed alongside tray of diminutive glass goblets. “Fourteen years of proof would counter that argument, valzȳrys.”

   He made an audible sigh and Alystrea walked towards the armchair, with a filled goblet in hand. “Vaedar is but a spark of mine blood, he is yet to show himself in the true burning blaze that is the Vohgyreon way.”

   “That is because you have yet to grant him an opportunity to do so. And you place unfounded blame upon his head. Whatever this business is with the Template can easily be appeased; gift them fourteen buzdar or perhaps twice that for the coming Rōvēgrie Tymptir. But what of your son? Vaedar would have flown in such a reckless fancy of thrill only for the hope of your praise and at the abettal of his older brother.”

   “You cuddle the boy too much, Alystrea. He is no longer the frail newborn so close to death that he once was.” Ragaer now reprimanded her sternly, the hard lines of his face now forming into a frown.

   Valyrians were far-famed for their beauty but it always surprised Alystrea that she could still find herself saturated with desire amidst all the distaste and disdain she harbored still.

   With the more-gold-than-silver of his hair, a day’s old stubble which he had allowed to shadow on his face; Ragaer was built like most dragonlords in a broad build of a war master.

   She gazed down at the man she had been married to these fifteen years. Her beautous face scowled perfectly. “And you leave him to go to his sleep with dreams of you cursing down a disgrace of the lineage upon his head. That will not do, Ragaer.” 

   “ ‘This business with the Template’, as you called it is a very delicate situation that has been made even more precarious by Vaedar’s desire to mishandle an artefact that has been atop that peak since the founding of Valyria. So no, it cannot be handled as flimsy as you speak it to be so. And particularly because of the Rōvēgrie Tymptir only a week ahead, or the new strictures which the Templates have been leaning towards in-”

   Ragaer cut himself off in his exasperated rant, letting go of the papers and pinching the curve of his ear in frustration.

   “Ragaer-”

   “I will appease the Templates, and the boy both.” her husband quickly acquiesced.

   “Yet it warrants not that the two of them can just go off endeavoring something as foolish and brutal as dragon-racing and make a daring show of it to the entire populace.” Yet Alystrea still pursued. “They were left in your charge, Ragaer. That fault lies with you for leaving them on to see their own journey back.” Alystrea dropped the glass, after only a half taste of the colorless wine that had not gone down well.

   “They’re all but grown men, Alystrea. They will seek their thrill wherever they may find it as soon as they are no longer beholden to anyone.”

   “Yes but it doesn’t mean they should also be without the consequences of their recklessness.” she said with meaning.

   He gave her an upraised brow. “You want me to punish them? After you’ve just had me agree to conciliate with Vaedar. I tire of this talk so which is it to be, ābrazȳrys?”

   “Both. They will be without permission to tend to their dragons for a moon, not grooming and most certainly not riding.”

   He shook his head. “That would surely aggrieve them.”

   Alystrea knew it would especially for Anteros who, unlike his younger brother, was not one to be separated from his Nightcrawler for such a long time as a month. She had considered not having them attend the Rōvēgrie Tymptir but that was perhaps too severe a penalty for their disobedience.

   “And you are not to acquiesce to either of their pleas. Not Anteros or Vaedar.”

   “Very well. You may leave me now.” He took up the papers again and riveted himself back to it. However Alystrea did not move an inch away from where she was, even with the obvious dismissal  from him.

   “We need to talk about your mother reading all of her incantations to the babies while they sleep.”

   Ragaer let out yet another sigh of exasperation, rubbing at his eyes with the pinches of his index and thumb and Alystrea figured he was exhausted.

    He had looked out of it during supper that she wondered the extent and manner of his meeting with the Archon but she had stopped involving herself in matters of her husband’s well-being a long time ago.

   “The woman wants some time with her grandchildren. Would you deprive her of that opportunity, Alystrea, when she could very have little time left to do that?” he asked her, unblinking.

   “She can have whatever time she desires doing something other than scarring our children with such stories. Vaedar had nightmares of them for near a year.”

  At the mention of his second son, Ragaer grimaced with sudden exasperation. “The blood of the dragon feeds off of nightmares and fears, we do not tremble from it. Stop cossetting the boy or he would be an aberrant and no use to anyone.”

   That angered her even more; her azure eyes were severe and glowered darkly at her husband as she replied. “Just because your parents never cared how peaceful your nights were as a child doesn’t mean I want the same for my children. And Vaedar will be nothing of that even though you cannot see it; his strength is as much fearsome as his forebears.”

   When Alystrea had heard the full tell of their race at supper, whilst her heart had almost dislodged itself in the knowing that her sons had ridden their dragons through something as chanceful in its dangers as the Eye, she had been impressed at the boldness that they had shown.

    Moreso for Vaedar.

   Yet Ragaer believed otherwise for their youngest son. Now Ragaer scoffed at her declaration, clearly disinterested at his wife’s words of defense for Vaedar. Alystrea knew there was little need arguing this with him.

   Say what he will to try and convince himself - and not her - of not being impartial to the boy, but Ragaer had ever seen Vaedar as the sickly babe he had been borne as.

    Where Alystrea was guilty of coddling Vaedar, fearful that even the slightest thing could send him to that tittering edge of crossing to the Kesīrtolī, Ragaer had seen their youngest son as afflicted forever by that weakness even now that Vaedar had outgrown that fraility. And she hated him for holding such a view on it and constantly blaming her for it.

   “If you will not consider speaking with your mother then maybe I’d have to take the babes to Volantis. Vaedar will join us, he has never been to the colonies and would be glad to.”

   His glare was harsh and stern, as his head snapped up. “For what purpose, if I am allowed to ask?”

   Alystrea smirked, and looking towards the flames in the fireplace. “My cousin has been writing so infrequently of late. She is one of my dearest relative and I have not seen her in years.”

   Ragaer made an unintelligible sound but his sneering scowl was unmistakable. “Yes we both know how dear your cousins are to you.”

    She refused to tackle that comment and listened for more of his inconspicuous remarks. “They are too young to travel–”

   “Anteros was much younger than they were when you took him all the way to your father’s war camp in Myr.” She snapped back, the memory still too distasteful to remember.

    Her firstborn had been snatched from her arms just so that Ragaer could present him to his father in the middle of a war and assure him of the continuity of great Vohgyreon blood.

   They just stared at each other as if the final verdict would be made by the winner of their scowling gazes. Ragaer knew how much that decision had infuriated his wife years ago and reminder of it still did. And he had done it for just that.

   “I’ll talk to my mother.”

   She could barely hold back a victorious laugh. But she had to. Ragaer was not a man to feel thwarted especially by her. “Oh? I would think you’d use my impending absence to indulge in your bevy of courtesans?” Alystrea added with mock surprise as she started to rise from the chair.

   She didn't know what urged her to further this spat but she was enjoying his discomfort and his easy surrender tonight

   “Nothing’s stopping me from doing that whilst you’re still within this palace.”

   Ragaer was already to his feet and with an exaggerated agile motion had pulled his wife to him, his hand grasping at her waist as he stared down at her.

    He had moved with the significant speed that their kind had been blessed with. He leaned down to breathe against her neck as she felt his growing hardness pressed to her thighs as his hands reached down to push aside the hems of her skirt to touch the insides of her thighs.

  Alystrea gave a low chuckle that held neither amusement nor desire.

   “Go right ahead, my love and I’ll have their breasts served to you for your breakfast.” And she shoved him off of her with almost equal strength as her husband. Ragaer looked rustled by her rejection and then she could see the fury sparking in his eyes but she wasn’t bulking.

  “Sweet dreams, valzȳrys.” Alystrea droned as she left the chambers for the comfort of her own away from the loathsome company and attentions of her husband.

Chapter Text

   In short of five days, Taryeos would be eight-and-ten years.

   Eighteen years was nothing of consequence to the Valyrian calendar, but for the red-samite wearing voktys of Vōre Sȳndor, the holy sect under the mysteries of Morzanys the Ashen, held namedays that counted in nines, sacred.

   Perhaps because their patron god, was aliased the Ninth Shadow. So, the voktys of the Nine Shadows had since placed propitious grandness to the number nine; nine voktys anointed every nine years, nine sanctuaries to the nine shade hall built within the temple of Morzanys and nine oaths to be sworn for each level of their initiation.

   Tary was expected to partake in the first of his shadow oaths to be on his way to be one of the respected voktys of the great god Morzanys. It was all any of his fellow acolytes had since been dreaming of since their acceptance to the sect and it was all Tary had believed was meant for him since his arrival on the steps of the temple.

   In the dozen years since serving Morzanys as an acolyte, Tary had heard of twice as many of those years, who had gone into the ninth and lowest sanctuary to swear themselves but had never come out as full fledged voktys.

   He had helped the older acolytes prepare and watched the voktys perform the sacred rites which swore them into servitude to Morzanys the Ashen.

   The High Mysteriarch of the Sect of the Nine Shadows of Morzanys the Ashen, Melgyr Nohtigar, had made it a tradition to grant the acolyte before his swearing one favor, within reason, before they surrendered themselves to the Ashen One in perpetuity.

   Tary, like most other acolytes when they’d been younger, had requested for sweets, cakes or a full day absent lessons, devotions and chores. But that was him as a child, Tary had resolved on the fifth night away from his nameday. He would not ask for childish gifts or reprieves. He was a man grown soon and he would take a favor suitable for that age.

   Sorris, his only friend here, had confided in Tary that he had taken his free day away from temple. Sorris had regaled him of his excursion to the Vaulted Assembly, the winding streets of the Five Courts, of being surrounded by the noise and excitement of the lower dells where the harbors hosted ships sailed and ported from their travels through beyond the Smoking Sea.

   With the way Sorris had told it, the outside world stretched further than the shadow halls of the temple they had grown up in.

   But did he not already know that there was more beyond the confines of their worshipful solitude? Unlike Sorris, Tary had lived six years in that world before he had been brought to Morzanys for his safety, leaving behind a whole life and destiny of his blood.

   If there was anything Tary could ask for it was the only one thing he’d ever truly wanted returned to him. His name, his life… his parents.

    But even with all his skill in the high mysteries, Tary would have the latter back yet the others… the other two was a different tale. He could have that back but that would mean him leaving the peace and home he had found in the sect, behind and delving back to be faced with the very perils that had driven him to the protection of Morzanys

   Tary was thinking about it more and more as the days to his nameday drew closer. He had thought about it in the mornings during devotions, when he broke his fast with his fellow acolytes and when he practised the mysteries under supervised assessment of Voktys Artheos.

   He had daydreamed about it through his rite instructions, and had absently spilled the horn of ceremonial ichor onto Voktys Narina’s robes. And now only five days left before Tary would ask the High Mysteriarch, he was still undecided.

  Maybe I should just do as Sorris and ask leave of this godsforsaken hassle. Tary grumbled as some of the bucket’s content splashed on his face.

    He could do nothing except to wipe it off with the back of his sleeves and continue cleaning the five hundred year old glass mosaic of the Ascension that had brought about the birth of Valyria; repeated in motifs across the three hundred square feet of the ceiling nave.

   The spill of water glistened in the light, throwing an imagery that was not Tary’s face when he looked at it.

   It showed knives in familiar hands, hands driving their blades in and out, in and out, in a rapid flash and outpouring of blood and desperation. A fading scream of his own name as the hands slippery in blood lost their grip and he was pulled away.

   Tary blinked hard, shaking his head and looked again. It was just his face It was a face just as Tary would always recognize himself; thin and sharp angles and his wide spaced bright eyes.

   Yet it also drew a jarring - and sometimes ghastly - reminder of some one else he had seen with those same lantern jaw and strong chin. I am starting to look like him now.

   It was Tary’s thirtieth mosaic face of Valyria’s foremother that morning. Tary had been counting, his hands swelling in pain from his diligent efforts.

    He had tolerated the first ten because the wings of the dragons on which Vaerylla had transformed her brothers into, were artistically inclined to be almost iridescent whenever he had cleaned them free from dirt. Nevertheless Tary found himself cursing the long since dead artist for making the entire Ascension their point of inspiration for designing the sanctuary floors.

  The fresco told much of the link unbreakable that bound Valyria to her gods. Voktys Narina preached that to forsake one was to forsake the other.

  However Tary was not like Sorris, who cared about such reminders of their religious history nor of the gods who demanded sacrifice for the penance of mortality.

    What Tary cared about were that his arms might just break off its hinges from all the scrubbing he had been doing for the past two hours. He needed to take a break and possibly not come back as he would be soaking himself deep in a cool bath for just as much time as he spent on the floors.

  Which was why Tary started yelling at the other acolyte who was supposed to helping him scrub the lingering dust marks from the ground frescoes in the sanctuary, to take his turn at cleaning.

  “Sorris! This isn’t funny! I’ve been at it for hours.” A strip of Tary’s headscarf unraveled to fall over his eyes as he turned his head sharply behind and yelled.

  The wiry figure of another boy, sitting with legs folded into themselves in front of a wall on the west end of the nave, gave an annoyingly loud meditative hum that nearly made Tary aim the cloth he used at his head. But Sorris cracked open his eyelids and smiled cheekily to himself.

  “We had a deal, Taryeos. You’re almost done any way, you just need to get a little farther to the Dirge.” Sorris cocked his head at his reflection shown near visible on the very well polished wall.

  Turquoise blue eyes, bright in their agitation, narrowed to slits in Tary’s face, directed at his friend. “I’d be without arms by then. Sometimes I ask why I pray and hope that I am put with you on the same chore on most days.”

  Sorris turned to catch Tary’s exasperated expression through the mirror’s surface and responded, smugly.

    “Otherwise you would have the pleasure of someone other than myself to keep you company. And may I remind you, you don’t work well with any of the others.”

  Tary snorted but did not argue against that. He let go of the soaked cloth and fell face up on the floor, staring at the vaulted ceilings as his mind running adrift to the fatigue of his body.

   He and Sorris and all the other acolytes of their age, shared many things as living under the roof of the twelve storied high structure built from black stone.

    They shared the same food at mealtimes and ofttimes they did so together in the eating hall on the fourth floor. They communed in the same sacred verses and hymns during benedictions and they slept under the same cracked red skies that filtered and dispersed into a vibrant of colors when beaming through the stained glass ceilings of the temple.

   But neither one of the dozens of acolytes nor the ordained voktys and mysteriarchs shared the friendship Tary had with Sorris. And Tary was reconsidering that charity at the very moment with his fingers being blistered and stinking of the saldyte solute in the water.

   “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping, Tary.” Sorris cracked, walking over to where Tary laid and then sat cross legged again right beside his friend; wide blue eyes fixed on Tary’s sweaty, dark ruddy face.

   Tary sighed and turned sideways at Sorris. Another thing both boys shared in was their looks. But for the dissimilarity of their eyes; both boys could be mirror images of each other in their looks if seen from a measurable distance.

   Tary's hair was golden but was fair enough to be mistaken for silver like Sorris’ and the measured fastings in the temple had the both of them having a similar gangly, slender yet tall build.

   “What’re your options then, for your nameday favor?” Sorris asked, rubbing beads of sweat off with an arm and leaving it on his forehead.

   Tary moved his shoulders. “I don’t know. You’re the fifth person this morning to ask me. I almost knocked Daerad with that bucket for badgering me all the way to the sixth sanctuary.”

  Sorris smiled and started to pick the lint off Tary’s sleeve, “You cannot blame him. We all get very curious whenever one of us nears the age to ask for the favor. And who else are we to ask that will give us a most interesting answer. You’ve always been close to the High Mysteriarch; all those hours spent in his office. It irks Voktys Glaeris so, y’know. That the High Mysteriarch favors you so much, one might have heard Glaeris think out loud that the High Mysteriarch was grooming you as successor.”

   “That’s foolish talk, Sorris. You know that’s not how it works.” Tary snorted and had a quick glance at him before he glowered. “If you keep asking me, I will knock you upside with that bucket.”

   Tary turned to stare blankly at the geodesic stained glass ceiling that allowed the seeing of the clouds outside. The sunlight was filtered through the crimson glass of the heart of Vaerylla as she threw herself into a chasm of flame.

   Much as he had worn out his mind in ceaseless thinking on the matter for days past, Tary had been trying not to think about it today.

    Now that Sorris had brought it up again, Tary wondered what the High Mysteriarch would say should he forfeit his favor on basis of indecision or for a flimsy request to leave temple premises for a gander down in the city.

   No. It must be something important, he pondered.

   Tary shut the lids over his eyes, tawny feathery lashes shadowed over his cheekbones as he thought. Sorris would’ve thought he had gone into one of his instantaneous naps except Tary was still talking.

   “Perhaps you could ask to accompany him to the Anogeion to witness a session of the freeholders. Acolytes are usually allowed to attend and you’ve never gone before. That could be good, no?”

   “It would be if I wouldn’t be going in the company of Voktys Glaeris.” Tary enunciated with a discomfited tone.

   Sorris made the same response. “Then that rules it out. I had feared Daerad would have finally gone through with that threat of his had he not been sent to fetch some script on his turn.”

   “I think I could still hear him swearing all through that night. I was afraid that Voktys Narina would overhear him and come to drag him out of bed then wash out his mouth. Or mine for cursing him back for keeping me awake.” Tary laughed with Sorris at that, with winded breaths.

    They were quiet for a while, sat on the floors of the sanctuary they had been tasked to clean and bathed in the dispersed light from the glass hole eye of the dome over their heads.

    For this moment and all the many others in the span of twelve years that Tary had shared Sorris, he would not spite Nyessos for the blessing of fortune for meeting his very closest friend even with all the tragedies that had occurred to place him on his way to Sorris.

    Had his life turned out different from that night, Tary knew he could be dead at the extreme worst or Tary would have his family back and lose Sorris in the bargain. Sorris was the son of a merchant who seeking favor from the Template had given a son he could spare to serve the jaesi. Their paths would never have crossed.

    I would have been a different Taryeos. One that Sorris wouldn’t have even tolerated the sight of.

   And is that not what you become in the end should you go? A voice echoed distantly to him. Would you forsake this good life of friendship and duty for one filled with darkness and blood?

   I am bound by duty elsewhere. To my name… my blood…

   Sorris nudged him then. “What are you frowning at there, ñuha raqiros? What are you thinking about?”

   “That I would hate to not see you again, my friend.” Tary said without a look to him but he knew that Sorris was grinning his face off for that confession. “I am thinking how very conflicted I am on what to do.”

   Sorris placed a hand to his shoulder. “This is not some complicated mystery to decipher, Taryeos.”

   “It’s more complicated than you think, Sorris.” How could he tell him all that had happened to Tary to put him right here in this sanctuary with him? How could Sorris understand the crushing weight of the promises he had sworn to the dead?

   Promises. Guilt. Pain. Anger. Most of all anger.

   These were the things the Template demanded their acolytes to be cleansed off before they were inducted into their order. No promise should supplant that between voktys and their god. No guilt should be carried to worship. No pain but that which was fed to the gods in holy sacrament. And all the anger which Tary had borne and still did, had since bound him to a different god than Morzanys.

   “No decision without any complication is worth the time wasted on thinking on it.”

   Tary rolled his eyes, a slow smile playing its way on his face. “How long have you been waiting to throw that one back in my face?”

   Sorris chuckled. “A little over a while. Now are you going to tell me what’s really the bother in choosing a favor for the High Mysteriarch to grant you or do I have to keep the philosophical quotes coming?”

   Tary turned to him now, his eyes searching his friend’s. He took a breath in, and said. “I want to ask him to expel me from the Template.”

   Sorris looked as if Tary had knocked the very air from his lungs. His eyes widened and jaw slackened in the shock of Tary’s words. Tary knew how grave such words were, no one who was given to the Template could so easily leave it.

    Not with how long Tary had spent within its walls, learning the high mysteries of worship, being so close to the jaesi as nowhere else in the Freehold could be.

   Tary waited for Sorris to gather what was left of his shattered demeanor amongst the debris that remained from the shock Tary had bludgeoned him with. This was why he had held off telling Sorris. No one would have thought this would be Tary’s request because no one would dare to think of such a thing. What Tary had just said would need him to be dead to be accomplished.

   But then the High Mysteriarch was the highest in authority within the Template of Morzanys. If there was anyone who could grant Tary such a thing without such dire repercussion, it would be the High Mysteriarch.

   He waited but Sorris still had not spoken when Tary heard the doors to the sanctuary open and footsteps echoed on the freshly cleaned floors.

   A fellow acolyte, of a younger entry, approached and stopped right in front of the two of them,  in the knee-length ash-black tunic with sleeves dyed crimson and stitched in the glyphs of their sect, over the collar and hems.

    “You can leave if you’re finished. Voktys Hesella says we can go clean up for breakfast.”

Chapter Text

   Vaedar did not know what to make what he felt when Naherion, his father’s master of the Inner Palace, had come to deliver the news over them breaking their fast, of their punishment now imposed by their father for not just disobedience that had led to the racing but also for the affair of their old tutor resigning.

   “I did tell you it wasn’t a good idea to bother Master Irraenor so much.” Gaemma’s shrilly voice came from the corner of the circular jollōragon  situated in the same wing of the palace as their mother’s solar.

   It was here, in all the other more lush spaces in the palace of his father, that was reserved best for their lessons. It had its own selected reading collection, deposited on shelves and alcoves that encircled the walls about them save for the windows where they could attend their study of the heavens from there. The jollōragon held an extensive collection handed down from a generation of Vaedar’s family who prized scholastic accomplishments over martial. And from within this often comfortable silence, Vaedar had read the compounded volumes of The Truths of Araenor, Rahiar’s and Daliar’s Dynamics of Alchemy, he had studied Rylyx’s Heavenly Geometries just to understand Galgaer’s Arithmancy Projections of Continents. And though Gaemma was the best of them in reading the older Valyrian glyphs, Vaedar had read those written in it, no less.

   They were documented onto scrolls of paper, vellum, metal of steel, copper and bronze that had been worked so thinly that they were as sheets of parchment and its contents had to have been lettered with delicate chiseling. And that was not accounting the older, more prized texts that were the ancestral chronicles of Vohgyreon family.

   Vaedar had seen them when his father had taken him and Anteros down to the family vaults. He had marveled at the beauty of the medium they had been written in; compiled dragon scales that had to be stored in the family vaults that were only accessible to the head of the Vohgyreon blood.

   In the ones he had been permitted to read, those here in the jollōragon, Vaedar had uncovered a timeline to the history of his culture and its impact upon the world, marveling at the great and terrible deeds of heroes past, innovative successes of their artificers and sorcerers, the philosophical fantasies that educated in politics, religion and martial law.

   His brother hardly came here except to fulfill the obligations of his education, and even at that Anteros only read those enforced by their tutor. He had no heart in it. But here was Vaedar’s favorite part of his home, asides from the the Hold where he visited Ryrzag, Perhaps because Vaedar yearned to find his own place in it or to set himself on pursuits other than his dragon. On the rare chance that his father had paid him any mind, he had advocated that being Valyrian and of the dragonblood both meant more than just mounting one’s dragon and flying into battle. All knowledge led to better understanding and appreciation of their heritage and the bonds with their mounts.

   “How else was he to realize that he was wrong and I was right?”

   “You don’t always have to tell everyone that you’re right and they’re wrong. It’s irritating to say the least.” It was Anteros who retorted back with just as much chafe for their ordeal as Vaedar was. He was on the daybed, toying with the dagger that should have been Vaedar’s.

   Vaedar rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly what he wanted us to do only he lacks the stomach to take correction from one much younger and of far superior intellect to his own. Just the same as you, lēkia. You take words out of anyone’s mouth as one would take a bull’s horns.”

   Anteros frowned, visibly affronted which at least brought a smile to Vaedar’s face even if for the briefest of moments. “What do you mean by that?”

   Vaedar switched hands to rest his chin on, not wanting to answer his brother. If he cannot get to his meaning himself, Vaedar wasn’t going to lend him help on the way.

   In fact he was willing to forego talking to Anteros for the remainder of their lives for the monumental mess he had heaped them both. First it had been that Vaedar had had to suffer all of their father’s anger and now they were being punished to boot.

   But then again I shouldn’t have fallen to the bait for that race. It was still fun, though.

   “He means that you are blunt and unapologetic without care for the soft play on words.” Gaemma explained which drew Vaedar’s annoyance at her as well.

   Gaemma was in the corner just by the terrace, practicing her glyph scriptwork, Vaedar threw his cousin something of an irritated look.

   “Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, attending devotions with Voktys Aenelys?” And not here. Sometimes he was quick to forget that Gaemma was living with them and had been obligated to take lessons with Vaedar and his brother when she wasn’t giving company to their grandmother. Yet he was stuck with an entire day having to hear her voice squealing to Anteros’ defense.

   Anteros huffed, picked his fingers with his dagger. “I do not have a care for it because it is useless and without honor.” Vaedar rolled his eyes at the mention of honor. “Besides I’d rather leave that bit to you two. It’s all that reading you do, valonqar, that’s why this incarceration is better served by you alone and not me. I wasn’t the one who sent Master Irraenor into a seizing fit.”

   Incarceration he says. This is by all means your fault. Vaedar shook his head and bore what little interest he could manage to appraise the treatise of Eurythmic Genealogies of the Five Draconic Specie of which the three volumes owned by his family. Thus far his mind was elsewhere, on Ryrzag and their flight yesterday. After all that excitation, what could the five draconic species have to compare, certainly not when he had read and reread it a couple dozen times already.

   “This isn’t about that cranky, old simpleton, Anteros.” Vaedar said with a bite, glowering at his brother and the prized dagger twirling about his quick fingers. “And even if it were, I’d say good riddance. There’s nothing he could teach me anyway. Not with the way he dismissed anything proved his thinking wrong.”

   “Your flying could use more work, valonqar.” he heard Anteros throw the jibe with a mocking grin on his face and Vaedar could only glower back.

   “Only because you-”

   “Don’t start again with the cheating excuse.” Anteros retorted. His brother was lying down with abandon on the only cushions in the room and toying with the dagger that Vaedar had hoped would have been his if the race yesterday had turned to his favor.

   “I was going to say you’ve been allowed to ride far longer and more frequently than I. Of course you’d be a better flyer.”

   Anteros was now positively feeling like the Archon himself with the high praise that Vaedar had now afforded him. “Don’t sell yourself so short, Vaedar. You did well enough yourself; I would say you’re an even match with Maegel and he’s been daring close to me every day now.”

   “I’d prefer you keep from comparing me to him, brother.” Vaedar scoffed and turned his attention to the scroll he had been skimming through the pages for the remarkable rendering details of the subject species.

   “He was only trying to pay you a compliment, Vaedar.” Gaemma spoke and Vaedar glanced up to meet her wide spaced deep purple eyes. Again with  defending Anteros. Would she never tire of sucking up to him for the mere hope of having her affections returned?

   Gaemma was his elder by twice as much years as Anteros was to him and she had been living with them since Vaedar had been eight and she had come after her parents had died. They were her closest relatives still living and Vaedar’s grandmother had insisted that they keep her as ward of the family until such a time she was wed.

   “And I do not need it.” Vaedar retorted angrily. “Neither do I need to hear you proclaim your undying love for my brother. It’s pathetic, Gaemma.” he chortled at the flustered coloring that stained her pale cheeks.

   “By Arrax! You really did think Anteros would look twice at you, didn’t you?” Anteros was on his feet now, looking nonplussed between Vaedar and Gaemma.

   “Vaedar-” his older brother had now leaned off from where laid, sitting and trying to caution Vaedar back from his ire on their soft-speaking cousin.

   Vaedar knew Gaemma did not deserve his tirade. It wasn’t her doing that Vaedar was now more consigned to the palace grounds than he ever was before. Neither did she get him in heaps load of trouble. But she was the one who had decided to defend the culprit of it all. Just as how his father had defended Anteros, making Vaedar into the culprit.

   He couldn’t take it out on his father so that only pushed Vaedar to continue on. “You forget that my father would not permit your union now that we both have sisters? So whatever dreams you’ve had on ruling this place at his side is naught but that… a fanciful dream.”

   “That’s enough from you, Vaedar!” Their grandmother had entered the room without any one of them noticing.

   Lady Haera, his grandmother, always did smell of incense and burnt offering especially this early in the day when Vaedar knew she would just be returning from her devotions at the Temple of Onixa.

   She stood there in robes of soft yellows accented with a flowing veil of harshest crimson attached to a headpiece of silver etched with glyphs which heralded her honored sect within the Template. Her eyes, though filmy with age, still pinned them all with a stare of humbling violet sternness that Vaedar found himself reeling back in his chair.

   “What’s this now, tresy hen ñuha tresy?” she looked from Vaedar to Anteros and lastly to Gaemma who had her face in her hands weeping. Vaedar felt a tightness in his chest at the sight of her there. Perhaps he had gone too far. He had not meant to. Gaemma was too gentle to deserve what animosity he felt towards his cousin.

   “You should be less callous to your cousin, Vaedar. Your manners are not becoming of a Vohgyreon nor will I tolerate it.” Her voice had taken a harsh reprimanding tone that set the entire room cold.

   “You will apologize, or I will bind your shadow to this very room for an entire year while the rest of us go on about our lives.” His grandmother insisted, moving further inside. With the way Lady Haera had her hands wringing in each other’s grasp and her half-blind eyes flashing, Vaedar knew she would do more than she had threatened regardless of her affections for him.

   Vaedar went stiff as a stick but as his grandmother and brother waited and watched anxiously, Vaedar walked to Gaemma and took her dainty hand from her face and held it in his.

   She raised her face to look at him now, eyes and cheeks wet with the tears he had drawn from her with his harsh misplaced words.

   Harsh and misplaced maybe, but not untrue.

   “I beg pardon of my good cousin. My unhappiness for this unfair punishment got the better of me.”

   Gaemma sniffled, wiping her tears with her free hand but bore a small smile for him. Her soft nature was sometimes a gift to the turbulence of Vaedar and Anteros’ constant squabbling. But sometimes it only made Vaedar fearful for her.

   “No one of us would be happy about confinement away from our dragons, dear cousin. I know you didn’t mean it.”

   “Anteros, look how dignified apologies make us. You'd do well to take heed.” his lady grandmother turned to Anteros who had the decency to look scolded by her. “Seeing as all of this is a fault of your own making.”

   “Yes, muñāzma.” Anteros mumbled with his gaze to the floor.

   Their grandmother continued to say, the lines of her aged face were strict in their forming of a scowl. “Since you are lacking a tutor until such a time a replacement has been arranged, I will see that you kept abreast of your studies. Today you will refresh your dear old, senile muñāzma on the progress of your last lessons with that lackwit Irraenor.”

   So they spent the rest of the morning under the watchful eye of their grandmother who was no Irraenor when it came to handling their misbehavior during lessons.

   First Vaedar’s grandmother started with a grilling on the dragonblood, those families with the grand title of dragonlords and who sat at the zenith of Valyrian power in the Freehold alongside their mysteriarchs - sorcerer princes of the blood. Traditionally governing seats of the Freehold was given to any and all citizens of Valyria who owned land within the Freehold however, the uncontested leaders were the twoscore dragonlords, placed as heads of their bloodlines, who truly held the reins of leadership and spearheaded the fate of the Freehold to whichever direction they deemed to be worthy of them.

   “We are one such family.” Anteros lifted his chin with certainty as if there was anyone here in the room with them that he would be boasting for. They were Vohgyreons too. “The Vohgyreons have always been accorded our dragonblood siginia as the second progenation of the blood Vohgyr. But we truly cemented our place in the Anogeion as far back as the Second Ghiscari Wars when Velgyl of the blood Vohgyr held back the onslaught of the Ghiscari lockstep legions at the gates of Valyria in 216 AF.”

   “Velgyl had shown unprecedented power in his creation of Hydron from the three dragons shot down by Ghiscari scorpions. In the secret ānogar irudy, he reanimated the three corpses into a great three-headed behemoth of dread, Velgyl unleashed Hydron upon the armies of General Lord Ardur mo Dhemduhl and saved the city from a siege and sacking. His decimation of the Ghsicari legions allowed a further strengthening of the Vohgyreon’s rise to prominence within the Freehold, culminating in the election and reign of his sister-wife Vysessa as Archon of the Freehold decades later.”

   “And how many Archons have we in our name?” Their grandmother questioned Vaedar, approving of both Anteros and Gaemma’s summary of their family history.

   “Seventeen.” Vaedar said with complete certainty. “With the last being Vhael Vohgyreon, three and half centuries ago.”

   “And so began the decline of our siginia in the Anogeion, we have not had an Archon in that time despite boasting many worthy ancestors in that time.” His grandmother sounded in a lamenting voice.

   That had been his mistake. A dragon is just as patient as it is blatant in its fury. Would I have done much better than him?

   Vaedar did not want to get himself into deeper trouble with her by clarifying that their ancestor, Vhael had made enemies of more dragonlords than he could have forestalled against his downfall. It was true that the Vohgyreons was one of the high nobility of the dragonbloods of Valyria, one of the finest, and with a long history of glory and power but Vaedar knew they were also one of the poorest of the count. All that his father had left of outrageously wealthy ancestors was the palace they lived, a few owning shares in mines and a veritable worth of slaves to keep it all working. The rest of it had been squandered some later descendants of Vhael’s in pursuit of vices, schemes and plots to restore the family’s dwindling influence in the Anogeion but only served to worsen the situation by impoverishing their accounts.

   Now three hundred and fifty years later, all that Vaedar’s father had to leave his four children was just what he’d inherited from his father was the family siginia and a titled seat in the Anogeion that garnered little to no authority amongst other dragonlords. And that could not be shared two ways.

   His father never ceased to curse those reckless ancestors of theirs, to the chagrin of Vaedar’s grandmother, for leaving them nothing short of empty coffers that not even marrying an Aginarys had seemed to salvage it.

   ‘The Vohgyreons are worthy of more than what we are now’, his father would grumble and he would look to Vaedar and Anteros in worry and silent hope.

   Vaedar listened absently as Anteros listed off the mandated levies under the control of their family. He gave off surprisingly accurate numbers; personages, armament and paid incomes each Marshals were afforded in times of war. While his brother’s knowledge on the subject probably came from the time their father had forced Anteros’ attendance in the routine audience given to the family’s vassals and prefects, Vaedar’s came from what he’d read of the last recorded Fifth Ghiscari War had given him.

   The chronicle currently adorning their own shelves, Vaedar had been surprised to find out, had been written by his father who had been a little older than Anteros at the time.

   A needlelike bite stabbed at Vaedar’s right hand that rested on the table which jerked him from his thoughts. He bit back the curse he thought on instinct, under the vigilance of his grandmother who barely tolerated such speech to her hearing. Vaedar looked up to meet his grandmother’s sharp askance.

   “Shijetra nyke, muñāzma, my mind was away to have heard the question.” Vaedar’s apology still seemed absent any real thought and he hoped his grandmother would excuse him this for once. He clearly did not want to be locked indoors… not after yesterday. And try as he struggled all day to ignore the agitation that also bounded and surged through to him from Ryrzag, he couldn’t.

   “I asked who now holds the Exalted Seat in the Anogeion?”

   Succinctly and looking apologetic in the face of his grandmother’s slight frown, Vaedar gave his answer, “Daemor Belaerys. He’s been Archon since Laeriar Maghynir was killed in the Fifth Ghiscari War and his family fled into exile. Lord Belaerys rose to the supremacy of the Exalted Seat after winning the support of the people and lords freeholder for uncovering a plot of Eamrys Maghynir to seize the Freehold in a monarchical coup following the death of his father.”

   His grandmother accented. “And was he alone in his spectacular display of patriotism?”

   Vaedar shook his head, staring distantly to recall the finer details of the more recent history which he knew Irraenor had only just had them read and discuss before the last time Vaedar had vexed his tutor so much he was now resigned from the post. “He could have uncovered the plot alone but to acquire the writ for the arrest and execution of a dragonlord family, one whose patriarch had been as well respected and feared as Laeriar Maghynir would have need more backing than just Daemor Belaerys. He found aid with the Aegnnis, Rünaerys, Valthalon, the Rhyon and the Vohgyreon families.”

   “Not the Rhyons though.” Gaemma brought up. “Alaerys Rhyon opposed the action against the Maghynir. He spoke up in the Anogeion that the charge was fabricated to attaint the family of the dead Archon.”

   “Yet proof was found and even if it were not, the Maghynirs had already fled. And Lord Alaerys would not attend the final proceedings of the trial. He and his paramour was found dead in their burning manse outside the city and his heir recanted his uncle’s defense for the Maghynir family.”

   Gaemma shook her head, turning her face away from them. Vaedar did not know if she was going to cry again. He hoped not. “As if the whole thing did not already stink enough of foul play.”

   “Don’t be ridiculous, Gaemma. You do not mean to say that the Maghynirs didn’t conspire to turn themselves into kings over us.” Anteros railed with rising anger, hearing the asseveration that had belied Gaemma’s tone yet again. “You would doubt the siginia of our family, and our cousin, the Lord Archon, that they would connive with others to paint the Maghynir family falsely?”

   Gaemma wouldn’t even deign to answer him. She would think it was of no use as Vaedar often felt with his brother. Anteros looked at Vaedar, with aghast lilac eyes calling for his younger brother to back him up.

   “Vaedar, tell her.”

   But what could Vaedar add to prove both of them wrong. This was not the first time Gaemma made known her thoughts known on this matter. It was a very touchy subject for her. But it was the first time she would repeat it in the presence of Lady Haera and Vaedar wondered what his grandmother would say to the questionable camaraderie Gaemma had towards branded traitors.

   Then again it was expected for Vaedar’s cousin to feel this way. She had known the Maghynirs before coming to live with them; she had mentioned that she and her parents had once been invited to dine with the former Archon and his family.

   When the treachery of the Maghynirs had been discovered, it had been before Vaedar had been born and Anteros had been just a babe a few moons old, Gaemma would have been old enough to have paid witness to some of it. Neither he nor Anteros would know what happened except what the Anogeion had published for the populace and what their father had dictated in the family chronicles. And Vaedar was loath to disbelieve what everyone knew to be true.

   When he did not say anything, his grandmother sought to diffuse the ensuing argument between Gaemma and Anteros, by asking him further. “Vaedar, why does your brother call the Archon our cousin, even though we share as much blood with the Belaerys as two breeds of chimaera would?”

   “Because, muñāzma, it’s just an easy appellation that has become the norm of greeting between those of the dragonblood.” Vaedar said. “We all trace our descent up to the First Fourteen and so in some far flung manner, we are cousins.”

   “Sȳz. All dragonblood are not family blood.” Lady Haera surmised. “The families rarely look without for spouses and when they do, it is under the strict adherence to the spousal laws to ensure there will not be contention against the balance of power within the Anogeion. What do I mean by that, Anteros?”

   Anteros made an unlikely remark under his breath, directed at Gaemma, that only Vaedar sitting by him had heard. That was all he would give their cousin so he replied to the question posed to him.

   “When a spouse is gotten from outside one dragonblood, the spouse relinquishes their name, blood and seal of their birth. They become one and wholly to their new family. Just like Mother did.”

   “Yes, indeed.”

   Just then a knock, sounding a well needed interruption to their lesson, on the door before it was pushed for a slave to enter, her head bowed low even as she closed the space between where she stood and Vaedar’s grandmother.

   Vaedar caught the tightening of her face and the way she wrinkled her nose as if she had just smelled something foul. She detested any contact she had to have with a slave and preferred any message be brought by her own personal attendant, Laerya, a Valyrian though low commoner. And this was not her judging by her deep bronze skin, ink dark hair cut short and the slim metal torque of a vise around her neck.

   “Yes?” Lady Haera said with impatience.

   “Forgiveness, riña. This one was sent to deliver a summons from zaldrizes āeksio. You are needed, riña, in the cholstery.”

   The slave soon as she had finished, backtracked her way out of the room. Vaedar turned to his grandmother who was already rising to her feet and eyed the three of them.

   “Gaemma you may be excused. You had best go tend to your dragon and see about having some time in the air with him to practise some of the maneuvers I suggested, It’s been a lovely morning and you would enjoy a flight as I have.”

   Vaedar saw that Anteros too, like him, had perked up at their grandmother granting Gaemma permission out of studying in the  jollōragon. Perhaps she would do the same for them given that they had been judicious in her assessment. But when she looked at the two of them, Vaedar already knew that hope was unfounded.

   “The two of you will continue here.” their grandmother shattered that hope to further smithereens. “Before supper I want to have you both reciting the entirety of the Ordinances, by sects of the Template.” Anteros’s jaw fell in gape while Vaedar slammed his face into the scroll before him.

   “Why allow her to leave?” Vaedar contended petulantly, looking rightfully affronted.

   Gaemma threw him a self-satisfied smirk that was so uncharacteristic of her. “I wasn’t the one stupid enough to rise to the bait of a race by my foolhardy brother. Mayhaps, Anteros, you can use the time to read more and see for yourself how deep the Maghynir fallacy you have been fed, goes.” and she left but without Lady Haera who looked pleased for the girl.

   “Muñāzma,”

   Their grandmother rounded upon them, narrowing down at Anteros, as he started to plead. “You will do the recitation in reverse order. Go on then, try to pray your way out and see your punishment increase by the count. I am not your father who would overlook your whims and I am to old to concede to your silliness. You are near a man grown, Anteros and the blood of Vohgyr have no need for reckless and thoughtless heirs.”

   With that reprimand, she was gone in a flurry of robes and a well and truly chastised Anteros in her wake. Vaedar would have loved to enjoy the sight and feel of seeing his brother, who so easily got away with nary a concern or rebuke, now have some consequence on him, but the feeling was hollow now. It was nothing compared to what he had felt yesterday, atop his Ryrzag.

   Vaedar gave a defeated sigh and took the scroll on the draconic genealogies from earlier and went to sit by the window of the room. Even if he had read it a couple dozen times already, at least from here he would see when Ryrzag would leave the Hold for a flight. Vaedar could enjoy the sight of his fiend enjoy herself in the skies above and that much gave him content to wallow in his punishment.

Chapter Text

   Zhatana was shaken out of darkness by someone picking out the pockets of her sack dress. She tried unsuccessfully to open her eyes, it was weary to do so when the darkness had held her for the forever time she believed she had been in its grasp, but try she did again.

   She heard a voice muttering to itself, “Is this all I get for saving your life? Stains to my new cloak and a mouthful of pissant? Worthless little canny.” The voice had an undoubted strangeness that Zhatana, only now rousing could be certain there was, even as the speaker coughed deep in his chest and the smell of stale liquor washed over Zhatana’s nose. “Screaming like that. If you hadn’t sounded like a girl I wouldn’t have run all that way.”

   The figure’s looming shadow hovered over her as Zhatana realized she was lying prone to the floor, hindering the light behind his head that Zhatana could hardly see the person’s face without squinting. Zhatana tried to say something, but it dribbled out as a groan in response to the aches in the back of her head.

   Zhatana looked at the mentioned cloak, finely made in sable, dyed deeply in yellow gold and forsure they were smudged with mud and grime and whatever ran the corners of these unsightly place for someone such as him to be in. She heard a grunt from herself as she stood up, then the heavy thumping of boots fading away into the distance.

   After a while Zhatana found she could open her eyes without the painful stabs of light hurting her much though her vision remained blurred for a brief more moments before adjusting. Her nose felt larger than the rest of her head as she smelled everything around her; from the wine the man drank to the sweat that lingered on his clothes and the faintness of something herbal cloying very closely to her.

   She raised herself by the elbows from the floor, the motion made carefully and slightly so as not to draw attention to herself before Zhatana was ready for it. Nevertheless the agony of the movement ricocheted from several branches of aches from her lower torso where her ribs were and a metallic taste bloomed on her tongue as she caged her teeth onto themselves to stop the acknowledging sound of the pain from crawling up her throat.

   She turned her head to the sound of those deliberate footsteps returning and looked at her rescuer. Zhatana had seen men like him about the streets of Lys. Daunting, garbed in the livery of the city watch yet wore finely polished suit of armor that exposed them for their backhanded deals with the criminals and vermin of the lower dells.

   “You’re awake. I know you are.” The voice said with her back to her. “It’s rude to pretend sleep only then to stare without leave. Though I do not particularly mind it.” she laughed at the end of that and turned around to face her.

   Then Zhatana understood why she had found the voice so strange. It had been the tone of it or the mask of the tone moreso, that seemed crafted over time to sound like a real huskiness of another sex. This man that she had thought was a man, was a woman indeed. And she was no different from any of the people, Zhatana had seen about the city; whether Lyseni or Valyrian. Not with the short – deliberately hazardous – jagged cap of golden hair that passed on smooth forehead or the violet eyes soft with frequent humor that peered at her.

   It should not have been the figure's apparels that Zhatana should have wondered and gaped at, but this one’s prettiness. She had never seen one of their sort without the embarrassingly thin clothing or off their flimsy perches of the pleasure gardens that heavily crowded the upper streets of Lys. Zhatana knew the city prided in possessing the greatest of beauties alongside the loveliness of the paradise they inhabited. They hailed themselves from spawning from the discarded offshoots of the decadent bloodlines of their Valyrian overlords who visited the city for its thousand pleasures. People with their appearances marked out by such blood ties were usually accorded to the palaces or pleasure gardens if they were low common. The men may have their assurance with a sword and spear talk less of a woman of common birth yet of fair Valyrian looks was sent to the gardens to adorn and entice.

   What was one such as she doing dressed as a watchman?

   When she moved away from the source of light - a hanging lantern – Zhatana took better notice of her. She looked to have ten years over Zhatana, with a sturdy frame like any other soldier and she was dressed like one too. In the yellow tunics and blue cloaks, Zhatana was familiar with seeing on the City Watch.

   I’ve never heard of girls allowed in the City Watch. Who’s this?

   The watchwoman brought Zhatana a filled cup which she did not reach for instead she eyed it suspiciously, shifting away from her as far as the wall at her back could allow her.

   To that the watchwoman chuckled. “Cautious one, are we? Well, not that I would blame you. Here, see?” She tipped the cup to her mouth and swallowed a sip, all the while keeping a steady gaze to her. “No harm to it. It’s just water.”

   Her hands were too shaky to grip the cup well so she helped place the rim of it to her mouth and she drank deep and satisfyingly. Her throat was parched as a desert and needed the soothing coolness of the drink. The cup was emptied in less than a breath and still she thirsted. Zhatana looked at the woman expectantly and she nodded, understanding, and moved to where pitcher rested atop a table.

   With her turned away again and having some sense returning, Zhatana peered about the room with new eyes. It wasn’t much of a room to begin with, more like a cut in a wall big enough for two people to hide in - two of them it would seem. And all that was within was the stool with the pitcher and a blanket on the floor where she lay. Her dark eyes raised to meet her rescuer’s waiting gaze. A pair of startling blue eyes fanned by blond lashes. “Well, you’re alive then? That’s something, I suppose.” she handed her the cup and this time Zhatana gripped it good.

   She didn’t finish this one so quickly nor could she. Not with what next the watcbwoman brought before her. Her stomach rumbled at the scent of the stew and warm bread placed down before her.

  “Go on, eat. It’s all Shosne could manage for us from her kitchen. But she’s got a veritable good hand at stews; feeds half the watchmen these days.”

   This time Zhatana found the words to speak. “Where am I?”

   “Safe. This here is a suitable hideaway from the dangers of the outside streets. It used to be home to a boy not much older than you. It should suffice for you, for now. I couldn’t bring you to my own abode for obvious reasons.”

   What obvious reasons? Not that Zhatana would have found her said abode to be any more suspect than she found this one. A discomforting groan sounded from her in response to her muscles screaming in protest as she made a sudden movement. Pain lanced through her side, and Zhatana gasped, pressing a hand to the bandages that had been wrapped around her ribs.

   “Don’t move too quickly. You took quite the beating.What is a slip of a girl like you doing in such places?” The woman’s tone was gentle, but Zhatana flinched from it either way.

   “Why save me?” Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. She had learned to speak what little of the Valyrian language common to the Lyseni before, but now, wounded and wary, the words felt unfamiliar on her tongue.

   The watchwoman said simply, stepping toward her but halting when she tensed back. “You needed care, and the streets aren’t exactly hospitable to the wounded or to any child left on their own.”

   She glanced around, looking for a way out. The door was closed, but not bolted. A single window let in the dim light of the moon. No sign of her ragged cloak or the small knife she had kept hidden in her belt. Panic flickered through her chest.

   She sighed, sensing her unease. “You’re safe here, girl. No one will hurt you.”

   And that’s to say you would not? Zhatana scoffed, pressing her back against the headboard. “They all say that.”

   The watchwoman expression darkened, though not in anger – something else. Regret, perhaps? “Yes, I suppose they would.”

   Silence stretched between them. She moved toward the table and picked up a small clay bowl, stirring its contents. The rich scent of stew filled the space. She approached the bed slowly, as one might with a skittish animal, and set the bowl on the wooden crate beside Zhatana.

   “Eat. You need your strength.” Zhatana ate as she bid and watched her with a gnawing sense of suspicion. Whatever her kindness, Zhatana had to still be wary. She had seen too much kindness lead people astray, especially in this strange land. She had seen children stolen as they wandered off too far from their guardian. She had seen grown men, glad in such robes of state, gutted in the light of day and she watched as his wife was carted off to serve in a pleasure garden.

   Zhatana had seen and learned much in the moons since she’d washed up here. None too pleasantly, if she were to add. And none too eagerly either. Lys was beautiful and serene, with their pink marble palaces and luscious airs perfumed with every kind of flower – both flora and human yet underneath it all also lingered the perfumed rot of a thousand and one sins and dark desires that could only be fulfilled by being twice as sinful and thrice as dark. Zhatana could only keep herself away from these sort of people; best to stay unnoticed but also vigilant. That was why she blamed herself for what had occurred to put her in this situation. She should never have had herself cornered by those boys. That was an assured way to die or worse…

   She picked up the bowl, more out of curiosity than hunger, and took a tentative sip. The warmth spread through her, soothing the cold that had settled in her bones for years. Her teeth caught on some pieces of meat in the broth and chewing gave her a new purpose to the flavors of the broth. Whoever this Shosne was. She was definitely not as good as she said she was. And the face she made had the watchwoman chuckling.

   “Yes I know. It’s good enough for grown men after they’ve come in from their patrols.”

   It’s good enough for an urchin who hasn’t eaten in days.

   Zhatana kept her gaze fixed on the woman as she ate, every bite slow and deliberate. The stew, rich with meat and herbs, soothed the hollow ache in her belly, but she refused to let comfort make her foolish. She had seen too many people let their guard down, only to be devoured by the cruelty of this city. Kindness was a ruse as much as it was a gift, and she could not afford to assume which his was yet.

   The watchwoman remained seated by the table, arms resting loosely over her knees, watching her in silence. Not in the way a wild beast watches its prey, but in the way someone watches an injured animal – waiting to see if it would bite or accept the offered hand. It unsettled her.

   “Why you help me?” she asked, her voice edged with distrust.

   She hesitated, rubbing a hand across her chin in only a way a man would. “Because I was in the area. And I am a blade of the City Watch, sworn to keep the peace of our lovely city. And your screams did naught but disturb that peace.”

   What humor she was trying to play on Zhatana with her words, did not catch her attention as she probably wanted. Her sharp eyes studied his face, this close up, some discrepancies came to light which she had not see – the slight crook to her nose, the scars that lined her forearm where her sleeve had slipped up. Certainly the face of nobility, pretty nearing lovely and she had obviously cut her hair to hide that. But not a woman born to comfort nor had she led a life of one.

   The curiosity on the woman’s face at catching Zhatana appraise her, had Zhatana speaking after another mouthful which finished the stew. “It is just strange to see one such as you in this choice of life.” she said, her voice softer now. The men of the City Watch whom Zhatana had often fled at the sight of yet still did see, would have certainly noticed that they had a woman in their midst. Albeit she’d have been obstructed with their helms on their heads yet she could not be wearing that thing all the time nor would she have had it during the start. And lastly Zhatana knew much enough of Lys to know how much the city accorded its citizens – it was called the Lys the Lovely for a reason.

   She moved her shoulders. “Here in Lys there isn’t much options for the baseborn of Valyrian sires. Even less for the girls. I was lucky enough to survive the first few years of my birth to be given the Lyseni choice; either serve the garden or die a slave. I found a third choice that suited me best after I had put enough work to keep the ruse up. Either way I am still a trophy for our beloved city.”

   Not my city.

   “I am called Mineya Ostys. But I am known as Ostys.” she said after a moment, looking at Zhatana in that way again. “What is your name?” She hesitated, the instinct to lie strong. But as Zhatana looked into  steady gaze, realization shifted inside her. She had not spoken her name since she’d come to Lys. Not to anyone and not to herself which would have been otherwise odd. She had heard it in her dreams, ever on the lips of ghosts that stretched from their watery graves.

   “Zhatana,” she murmured more to herself than to the woman. More to the earth beneath her feet and the sky above her head. Let them know that she was still here. That she still had breath to defy whatever misfortune the gods were so eager to keep throwing her way.

   Zhatana.

   Zhatana.

   Zhatana. She must have to sing it to herself more often now. She must never forget herself. Never.

   “Aren’t you a little far away from home, Summer Islander?” Ostys said, and Zhatana found herself smiling with her. She tried stopping herself but the tears were already pooling in her eyes and then the tears started to use forth like a river unchecked.

   She was glad that at least the woman – Ostys – did not try to comfort her. She would have made good use of the empty in her hands to greet her gratitude if she had. She stayed apart, unmoved by the little girl in tears who missed the sound of her own name and the yearned for the bliss of her homeland. After what felt like more than necessary, the tears dried from her eyes and Zhatana was left with the sorrow in her heart and the fatigue from her wounds.

   “I am sorry to have brought you thoughts of your homeland. You clearly miss it as any would.” Ostys’s voice came soft and sincere in the apology. “Now that you’ve had something in your belly, I’d best leave you to rest. I’ll come again on the morrow.”

   Ostys stood to her feet, adjusting the angle of her sword that had stayed sheathed on the belt of her tunic. Her helm and cuirass had been stowed in the corner of the hovel, she reached for both and spoke as she redressed her garb of duty. “You can stay here for now, until you’re healed. Then you can decide what you want to do.”

   Zhatana’s fingers curled into the fabric beneath her. “You expect me to trust you?”

   “I expect you to make your own choice,” Ostys countered easily. “But if you leave now, you won’t make it far in your condition.” She hated that she was right. Her ribs ached with every breath, her limbs still weak from days of hunger and exposure. If she left now, she would collapse in an alleyway and never rise again either because those boys would return to finish her off or from some other urchin seeking to take more from her in their place in the gutters. Still, the thought of staying made Zhatana’s skin prickle with unease.

   Ostys seemed to sense the conflict in her. “I’ve got rounds for the night but believe when I say no one can find this place unless they know it in the first place. You can rest without worry.”

   Zhatana narrowed her eyes. “And if I try to leave?”

   Her gaze met Zhatana’s, calm and unwavering. “Then no one and nothing would stop you. Just make sure you aren’t seen leaving here. I’d prefer this place to remain secret.”

   She studied Ostys for a long moment, trying to find the deception in her words. But there was nothing – no smug assurance, no veiled threat. Just simple truth. And that, more than anything, unsettled her the most. Ostys pulled a worn blanket from a trunk near the hearth and laid it down near her. She extinguished the lantern, letting the room dim to the soft glow of the fire, then departed without another word.

   Zhatana remained sitting upright in the bed for a long time, listening to the quiet fading of her footsteps, counting the slow rise and fall of her own breath. Sleep did not come easily. Her mind ran through every possible trick, every hidden danger of being in the hands of a complete stranger. But exhaustion was a force stronger than suspicion, and eventually, her body gave in. She closed her eyes to the dark and fell prey to her dreams as she had since been doing. Zhatana dreamed of home, of the lost ghosts looming from shadows beneath the waves and stretching to touch her.

   The next morning, Zhatana paced the small room, testing the boundaries of her so-called freedom. The door was unlocked. The window, though small, wasn’t barred. Nothing kept her here but the dull ache in her ribs and the nagging thought that the streets outside weren’t much safer than staying put. Still, her instincts screamed at her to run. She had survived this long by not trusting people, by never staying in one place too long. But this woman, this watchwoman that called herself Mineya Ostys, she unsettled her. How could she not? Not because she was cruel, but because she wasn’t.

   People who weren’t cruel didn’t last in a city like Lys like this, Zhatana had come to find. Lys might glitter and gleam as a well polished gemstone in the gold of the sun but it shrouded an ugliness that not many could survive from. So what did that make her?

   Over the course of the day, Zhatana grew more familiar with Ostys’s small home. Her ribs still hurt when she braced to stand and walk about but Zhatana was determined to know more. The better to escape when the time came for that. Just as she had surmised the night before, it was more hovel made in a stone wall, with nary a space for both Zhatana and the watchwoman to share in the first place; a dwelling – a hideaway as she had aptly put – with a cot for sleeping, a rough-hewn chest, nearly sealed window in the wall above the cot.

   It was well away from the din of the city, Zhatana could tell when she dared to climb a stool to look out the single window as she had wondered why everything had seemed too quiet. It was sparse in its contents but not barren and those she very well perused to satisfy her dreaded curiosity.  

   She drifted toward the chest, prying it loose from its security in the wall and hesitating only briefly before lifting the lid to glimpse what belongings Ostys had stowed aside. Inside was a neatly folded cloak, dark and worn but well-made. Beneath that, Zhatana spotted a few nothings; an empty bottle of perfumed oil, floral and clearly for a woman, a glassine shard, with twisted sharp edges that shimmered a deep bluish hue so dark it could be mistaken for black. The shard itself was as long as Zhatana’s forearm jaggedly broken on one end while the other end was attached to curved bronze stub that held two ingots of colored stones that winked in the light of day. Touching it gave Zhatana a sense of suspicion and shivers down her spine.

   Both items had been wrapped in a sheet of lilac silk, and a small wooden carving of a winged serpent – a dragon, she believed its likeness similar to the beasts that often flew about and landed in the city. Zhatana picked this up leaving the others back in the chest, running her fingers over the precision of the carved scales and curved horns. It was well-crafted, clearly treasured.

   Why would a watchwoman own things such as these? She set it back carefully and closed the chest. Her eyes wandered back to the weapons on the wall. Zhatana could take one, arm herself before he returned, make sure she wasn’t defenseless if he turned on her. But she didn’t. Instead Zhatana sat back down on the cot, exhaling slowly. She hated the uncertainty settling in her chest. Hated that she didn’t know whether to run or to stay. If she left, it was sure as rain that Zhatana must need find and get back what had been stolen from her and fear would shadow her afterwards as they would come again for her. Such was the way of the streets.

  Even now, without it, Zhatana felt naked. It was she had left of her home. Her brother had made the collar for her from stones he had fished from the shores close to their home. A gift that had turned to a symbol of good memories that was now lost to her. She had to have it returned.

  Tallan would never forgive me for losing it.

  There was nothing more to do in the hovel but to sit and wait and ponder her next steps. After she was strong enough to leave here, of course. When she was thirsty, Zhatana drank from the jug that still held some water, there wasn’t any of the food from the night before so she settled for emptying the jug of its content instead.

   The door creaked open as the diminishing sun drooped lower to the welcoming of dusk that settled over the horizon. Ostys stepped inside, shaking the cold from her cloak. The watchwoman paused when she saw Zhatana sitting there, exactly where she had left her.

   “You’re still here,” the watchwoman said, surprise flickering across her face. Her shook the drizzle of outside from her short pale hair.

   Zhatana lifted her chin slightly. “Yes, for now.”

   A slow smile tugged at the woman’s lips. “Good.” Ostys moved to the hearth, setting a small bundle of wrapped food on the table. “I got us dinner. Thought you might be tired of broth.” Zhatana watched as she unwrapped roasted pork meat and bread, the spicy scent mingled and filled the small space. Her stomach tightened with hunger, her saliva flooded her mouth in want but Zhatana didn’t move.

   Ostys caught her hesitation and arched a brow. “Still don’t trust me?”

   Zhatana crossed her arms over her chest. “Not till I have a reason to.”

   The watchwoman chuckled, tearing off a piece of bread and handing it to her. “Then I guess I better keep finding reasons to give.”

   She stared at Ostys for a long moment before finally, hesitantly, taking the offered food. “You live alone?” she asked after a couple hurriedly satisfying bites. Zhatana stuffed slices of pork into the bread, squeezing till the flavorful grease drenched the cut of the loaf  before she munched on it.

   Ostys glanced up from where she was slicing the meat with her knife. “Never said this was where I lived.”

   That’s not a yes or a no either. And Zhatana could not fault her for her own caution. She understood that well enough. At least that Zhatana could trust in and didn’t press further. They ate in more silence than the first night and Zhatana was grateful for it. She would rather not talk more and give the woman more to know of her.

   Zhatana was again amused at her different Ostys was from the other ladies she had seen about the city, ladies of the similar looks as Ostys - despite her sheared hair. She wondered that the City Watch must truly exhaust its members that the watchwoman would discard all that simpering courtesies Zhatana had seen of other women. But then Ostys was not like any of them, her line of work had to have made that clear enough.

   The woman’s querying returned after they’d made the food vanish, when Ostys approached Zhatana to check on her wounds. She made Zhatana lay on her side on the co after she had unwrapped the bandages around the girl’s chest going round her back. When Zhatana looked down, she swallowed a painful gasp at the smattering of bruises that were purpling and reds in discoloration over her dusky brown skin. Her hands clenched at her sides as Ostys passed tender but knowing hands over the spots, checking for where her hurts were more painful and humming to herself.

   Does she know what she’s doing? Zhatana asked herself, trying hard not to let the feeling of tears to summon them itself as Ostys tested the depth of the pains of the wounds.

   Ostys asked, intently fixed as she had stopped pressing at the bruises in her check and now rubbing a foul smelling salve she had assured Zhatana was nothing but a healing ointment Ostys assured she had had and had served her for a long time. “What got these bruises on you, girl?”

   “I…” Zhatana hissed at a sudden stab of pain but the woman didn’t react nor commend an apology as she continued setting the salve into her bruised body with a deftness that spoke of experience. “It is what comes with living on the streets. I survive.” Ostys met her eyes then.

   “You are too small. Next time, run. Run or you will be left in a far worse state. Not any other person would have heard you screaming and come to save you - not without their own intentions in mind. So save yourself.”

   “You said someone saved you once,” Zhatana finally brought up from their small talk last night, raising her arms so that the woman would tie round her the fresh roll of clean cloth about her torso. “Did they have their own reason for doing it?”

   The watchwoman’s lips pressed into a thin line before she answered. “I don’t know. If they did, they never made it known to me.”

   Zhatana tilted her head watching her. There was something off in the way she had responded. It was the same face her mother had when she hadn’t wanted to tell Zhatana something she would not like to hear but had to tell her something. “Do you regret it?”

   Ostys’ light brows lifted slightly at the question, then a ghost of a smile touched her face then. “No. At least, I never said so.”

   Zhatana frowned, fingers tracing the hem of the blanket over her legs. “Are they still alive?”

   A hardened pause came from Mineya Ostys but she still answered her. “No.”

   Zhatana knew better than to ask how or anymore questions. At least for now. Death came in many ways, and the details rarely mattered.

Chapter Text

   The hard repetitive knocks on the smoothed gilded stone double doors did nothing to garner the attention of its occupants.

   The bedchamber within was palatial in both size and ornamentation. It was white stone walls decorated with elaborate frescoes and mosaic ceilings. The ground lined with porphyry and polished marble. And at the centre of the chambers was a large feather bed underneath four wooden beams draped with canopies of gossamer. But the flailing gossamer didn’t do much to conceal the two naked bodies flailing in passionate thrusts and embraces of their desirous entanglement.

   Elehnae grasped the soft pillow tightly as her body shivered and shook with feverish pleasure and lust, her moans echoing through the room as the man a handful of years older than her one-and-twenty years, slaved his cock, upward and sensuously hard, to the benefit of her pleasure.

   An exhilarated moan escaped her mouth as the tanned, sturdy muscles of the man worked and rippled which each of his thrusts he kept in rhythm into her at a rapid and carnal vigor. Her lover reached, taking his hands from where they laid on the bed, to run up the deeps and bends of the bare skin of her hips and back. And Elehnae forestalling this, grabbed his hands by his wrists and pinned them over his head, the sinuous motion flexed through his smooth olive skin darkened by their shared perspiring lust.

   He raised his head, the curls of his pale hair falling over his lustfully blue eyes, meeting the ardent lilacs of her own just as a mischievous smirk cut across his very well-favored face.

   “No touching, remember.” Elehnae crooned with a soft smile, returning his roguish smile. Her lover – one of the Caraexgan guards whose name remained unimportant to her and would remain so until otherwise – continued to move his hips upward into her. He watched Elehnae’s perfectly round breasts rise and fall with her growing erratic breathing.

   She gasped out louder as she felt the edge of her passion reaching as rapidly as her lover’s lustful strokes and rode it out till it washed over her completely.

   “A-aren’t you-you going to a… answer it?” He asked in between deep drawn breathless moans. Her choice of a bedmate on this fine morn was pretty looking and even finer in stature, with sweat dampening the more albescent than silver hair over his dark forehead and his lithe muscles working beneath her.

   The knocking on the door was still repeating moreso getting louder and insistent to its banging in the time since it started. Elehnae tossed her own flowing but dishevelled gilt-and-silvery hair, aside as she turned to curl upon the endearing, well toned chest of her lover who had fallen next to her with heaving breaths. He gave a questioning look at Elehnae, his eyes surveying the loveliness of her form with deep satisfying want.

   “When it becomes clear I won’t be answering any time too soon, whoever it is would take the hint and go bother someone else.” Elehnae shouted those last few words loud enough for it to reach the other side of the door but the banging continued even louder.

   The naked youth beneath her gave a perfunctory laughter. “And what if it is the true owner of these quarters? I’d hazard that your mistress would not like to see me and you in here, like this.”

   “You would hazard wrong, sweet boy. My lady would not care that her bed is used thusly. For a fact she would already have fainted at the sight of us. A fragile innocence does my lady have, truly.” Elehnae replied softly in a whisper but there was not a doubt that she was not mocking the mistress in question.

   “Mmm, that is to be expected; she is the Lord Archon’s only daughter after all. He would take great care to preserve her purity if for the sake of her future husband.” Absently, the man ran caressing hands up the flawlessly pale bareness of her thighs on either side of him, reaching back to palm her buttocks to which he was well aware she enjoyed. He wore a lopsided smile. The very same one that had had Elehnae pulling him into a secluded corner of the palace halls to have her way with that mischievous mouth of his. However Elehnae knew very well this tryst was suppose to have seen its last days before now. Her affairs had always all had a purpose to them, a line of momentary pleasure that served a grander sketch of Elehnae’s own making. However this one had run out of uses.

   Well save for the obvious one.

   “Then we must make good use of what little time we have to it, mustn’t we?” He looked at her, the gleam of such devotion that had suddenly illuminated the deep hues of his eyes was overwhelming and concerning.

   Her impassioned lover turned, hands still at her waist to balance her weight as her back met the soft sheets of the bed, lovely dark golden tresses spread out about her and in the morning light, Elehnae was sure he was mesmerized by the silver streaks running through. He, like many men in the household of the Belaerys palace, had always seen one as her, with such incandescent stamp of the dragonblood, as worldly manifestation of the jaesi and yet even most of them could not compare beauty with Elehnae - so she had been told countless times before.

   He held her legs firmly hooked on either side of his shoulders and edged closer so that Elehnae forgot the wave of her thoughts as she felt the growing hardness of him pressed between her legs.

   This must have to end today… soon… Elehnae could not have him falling head over heels or cock in cunt with her. It served for nothing in her place in this household. It served for nothing in her future. But this would have be after. After… yes after he’s done what I have him here for.

   The knock bounded one more time, startling her thoughts yet again but this time, the rapping on the heavy doors was followed by a most recognizable voice. “I can stay here all morning, Elehnae! So you’d do better to open the fucking door or I shall have some guards do it!”

   Elehnae released an exasperated sigh, frowning and uncurled herself from her bedmate. Leaving the expansive bed, Elehnae donned on the sheer shift that laid discarded at the foot of the bed, on her way to the large doors. She threw it open so fast that the man who entered to have nearly tripped over his eunuch robes in his white faced hurry.

   Doryr was sharp-featured and gaunt as a mountain crag, but there was always a hint of laughter in the crinkles around his dull blue eyes. But Elehnae could hardly count the times she had seen his face turn up to a mere smile much more a laugh.

   “Careful, or you’ll fall faster than a bird with no wings.” Elehnae murmured with a demure smile, barely covering the lewdness of her body even if the shift she had thrown on was so sheer that it was pointless trying to.

   “Arrax give me strength! Elehnae, you would do this here?!” Doryr paled at the sight that greeted him, more aghast in mortification than surprise. “In your mistress’ own bed?” And although she was old enough to be spared a reprimand, Doryr never stopped.

   Elehnae snorted with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not like she makes good use of it. I am only helping her to break it in.” She gestured to her bed where her handsome page still laid with eager eyes and a salacious grin on his face.

   She watched the eunuch look past her shoulders to see the boy, just as she was, unabashed to even consider covering his naked form with the sheets. “You shame yourself and the name you serve under by this, Elehnae.”

   She glowered at the eunuch. “It’s the kind of shame only the sort like you would ever dream to have and are cursed without. Litse Syrax has blessed me so, none should deny in what way I choose to pay her worship in as many ways as the blessed goddess bestows on her chosen. Now what do you want, Doryr, so I can get back to it?” Elehnae addressed him with as much disdain she did every single one of the servants who busied themselves in their duties about household and would deem to refer her as if she was just like them. Just because she served the daughter of the Lord Belaerys did not mean that she was a lowly commoner or a slave.

   Doryr pushed past Elehnae who was very clearly annoyed at his intrusion as well as his obvious disregard for her wishes. “You should go.” He spoke to the handsome guard still relaxed on the bed, who refrained from heeding the eunuch much to Elehnae’s amusement. That was until Doryr added in a more threatening tone. “Do you know what would happen if the Lord Belaerys found out you were in his only daughter’s bed, as naked as the day you were born, sullying it with his daughter’s handmaiden? Do you wish to find out?”

   At that the young man’s eyes tightened into a glower as they passed from Elehnae’s disgruntled expression to the eunuch’s leering gaze; clearly her lover did not like the sound of a eunuch low common addressing him thusly neither had he given anything else any more of a thought beyond lusting after Elehnae. Less for the eunuch’s benefit and more for the threat itself, he wasted no time, climbing out of the bed,he grabbed his tunic from the floor on his way out of the bedchamber. The sight of which brought more humor to Elehnae than it was perhaps worth.

   “Pretty little thing, that one. But I’ve seen that face somewhere about. Isn’t he one of the lord master’s Caraexgans?” Doryr leaned down to gather the clothes littered on the room’s floors. Elehnae ignored his query grabbing the slip of indigo gown from him, as she walked towards the jointed privy chamber to wash off the evidence of her recent activity. “I hear he attends to his master with some arresting tricks so well the young lord would not be parted from him. How did you–?”

   Doryr heard her make a low express of mirth and looked up to see her stepping out. “I have quite a few tricks of my own.” And Doryr chuckled at her answer.

   “So then, what is it, old man? Whatever it is you had to disturb me this early in the morning for. Tell me.” She urged again.

   “It is Gaerion. And it’s past high noon, Elehnae, not a time you should be sullying your mistress’ bed with such a pastime when you should be at her side every moment. What if you had been caught? What would I have told your father?” Her caretaker admonished with a stern disapproving look at her when she exited the privy, full clothed. She reached for the gilt silk ribbon that signified her place in the service of the Lady Eramaera, using it to bind her voluminous hair into a taming bun atop her head.

   Oh just the same as you have been reporting back to him all these moons, Doryr. To that, Elehnae spoke, turning to him fully back in her dress and the sandals strapped to her feet. “ Now what’s this about my brother? What’s he done now?”

   “I think it would be better explained should you see it for yourself. Come.” Elehnae eyed the eunuch balefully, lilac eyes as cutting as sure as any other one of her wiles would perform to divulge to her the truth. But this was about her brother and so Elehnae was certain that whatever it was, needed to be handled as quick as Gaerion’s temper was sure to rise and cause Elehnae any one of a hundred problems.

   Doryr had been laced at the top of the household, a caretaker and overseer of the lesser servants and the master of the Inner Palace, yet his services had been more tied to keeping watch over Elehnae and her brother was long. He had been the one to raise them both in the absence of Elehnae’s father who had since buried himself in the archives to escape his responsibilities after his wife’s death. Not that Elehnae owed Doryr any form of gratitude for misplacing two young orphaned children amongst his other duties, the eunuch was just as spineless as her father who would have taken advantage of his charge as any low man would to a pair of children bearing the dragonblood. Even a partial half of it made her and Gaerion tenfold more precious than any low common blood.

   The Belaerys palace was more than a sprawling compound of exorbitant wealth accorded to the dragonblood. Elegant complexes of columns, as Elehnae walked between them, and spires adorned with carved dragon sculptures, painted frescoes and glassine mosaics polished in astounding homages to, expansive gardens that bloomed about magnificent atria all year round in vibrant colors that flooded the air about the palace with heavy floral scents. Within shining walls, where the dragonblood of Belaerys resided, tapestries and mosaics and grand statues adorned the halls and corridors. For fifteen years now, the Lord Daemor Belaerys has been Archon of the greatest civilization of the Known World and his residence held extravagant proof of his continuous hold on the Exalted Seat. This was the height of Valyrian power and wealth, Elehnae had deduced on her first arrival here when she had been two-and-ten years old when her mother had died and the Lady Eramaera Belaerys, feeling what short grief for her friend such a high lady of dragonblood of her stature could possess, had invited Elehnae and her brother to her palace and under her care.

   But it was not to ward as some charitable dragonlords would do to orphaned children of dead kith and kin. No, Elehnae’s pedigree - tainted as it were - was too base for such privilege. Her mother may have been daughter and peer to the dragonlords of Valyria but she had disavowed herself of the Anogeion by breaking one of Valyria’s numinous tenets and her sins were heaped on the two children born out of that sacrilege. Elehnae and her brother, Gaerion, were kept as little more than servants to the blood Belaerys and it was only for the sake of Elehnae looking more like her dragonblood mother than her low common sire that she had been accorded to the position of a handmaid to the innocent maid daughter of the Lord Archon.

    Following Doryr, yet also turning deaf to whatever else he was muttering, Elehnae came out to the orbicular yard that was almost at the edge of the palace and adjoined itself to the barracks segregated from the main palace grounds by short stone bridge that crossed over the lake which the entire Belaerys property floated.

    It was mostly an out building with three sentry pillars circling the compound. There was an expansive yard almost twice the size of the landingyard that provided the dragons of the family and the infrequent guests to the Belaerys Palace.This section of the palace was reserved for the soldiery under the pay of the blood Belaerys, the armory and the barracks were conjoined and sometimes the Marshals of the blood Belaerys held routine trainings and spars for their leading officers and new recruits. Elehnae was aware of the draw the barracks had to some of the other girls and maids that served the palace; straying from their duties to catch glimpses of comely recruits and hardy officers. But Elehnae had had no business to be here nor had she any desire to. Her brother had had to ever venture through to the palace itself to see her.

    Elehnae understood that the forty dragonblood families, each led by their dragonlord in the Anogeion, must have the power to muster a standard of at least a dozen vassalage of Valyrian nobles and a sparse quarter from that number were occasionally raised to title of Marshal to feed battalions of soldiers which were conscripted from anywhere from the low common to the slaves. They would be drafted into the soldiery guild, after years of training till they would be turned over to serve the Aegium of Valyria. Her father fell in neither of status that would have afforded Elehnae and her brother some standing in Valyrian society. He had not been born to as any scion of the Valyrian nobility nor had he gone into the Lōgor Guild to earn a captain greave, with a single ship under his helm. He was but a mere scholar - one of the several thousands that pored over measly books and scrolls as if power could be found in the ink scrawls of their dusty leaves. Yet that had somehow been enough for Elehnae’s mother who had been a daughter of powerful noble vassal of the Belaerys should have known better than to go against the superior orders.

    What a match that had turned out to be. What a profound scandal that still branded their children with ridicule from the higher circles. That chained Gaerion to go no higher than a mere footstool in the soldiery and Elehnae to be nothing more than a servant to a simpleton slip of a girl unworthy of her family name.

    But Elehnae was determined not to live out the rest of her years as a laughing line in someone else’s japes. Her mother was gone now and her father was content with his place but Elehnae would see herself and her brother rise far and beyond either. For that she had been grateful that her dead mother’s past connections had secured her a place in the household of the blood Belaerys. Elehnae would use her position as handmaiden and through that, Elehnae’s path was laid to see her brother raised to Marshal and her as one of the dragonblood.

    On approaching, Elehnae heard the multitude of jeers and cheers escaping through from clustered bodies of spectators surrounding the training yard farther; armorers and smiths working on weapons and armors, soldiers – bare-chested and sweaty - outfitted household guards coming in squads from scheduled posts after their shifts, the former training vigorously while the latter paused to watch the commotion at the center of the yard.

    Elehnae ignored the distracted looks from dispersing sweaty soldiers as she found a good place to join them and gaped at the source of diversion for these men. There, at the center of the yard, four figures clashed against each other in a series of brash strikes with their varied weapons of choice and one of them was her brother.

    Gaerion had chosen a thin-bladed sword with an ornate bell-guard, like any of the other soldiers doing their training, was garbed in the usual segmented armor that was made from a meld of bronze and leather that covered just the torso and shoulder pads under a simple linen tunic. The blade whined a tune as Gaerion went in after the other three youths just as old as he was, drawing it in well practised arcs; strong, light, and flexible with a smoothness that was almost glassine; better suited for his slender and long arm reach that he could cut out his opponent’s heart from a safe distance had the last of his opponents not been just as equally skilled - if not more - with their own blade.

   Had one of his sparring partners not been a son of the Lord Archon himself. Little wonder that the duel had drawn this many spectators to witness. Elehnae’s younger brother swiped his sword this way and that, twirled his grip on the guard to wield it as skilfully as she had seen Gaerion do on many an occasion before. She marveled at the singing sounds of blades slicing through air as they clashed against upon each other, before she recognized who it was that stood in the sparring circle with Gaerion.

   Gaerion and… Lord Rhaesys Belaerys. Her brother was dueling one of the sons of Daemor Belaerys. This was the cause of the urgency that Doryr had come to her with, which should not have been a thing to worry about. Gaerion was only a tȳnegos, yet his discipline with the blade had ever been a constantly sung prayer at the altar of Vhagar Ērinnonys and was all the offering Gaerion could gift to Caraxes.

   Only it was not just dueling; Gaerion was furious and brutal in his strikes and his opponent was grinning with a dark glint in bright eyes - nor was it just any opponent he was engaging in this dance of steel with. This could very well prove disastrous for both of them should Gaerion not rein his tempers in and do something that would insult or abase Rhaesys Belaerys before all of these people.

    It seemed like Gaerion had been waiting for some time now, and his concentration sharpened as soon as his boots scraped against the flat smooth stone of the ground. With a turn of his arm, he brought the sword into blocking position, Gaerion’s legs bracing for the impact as steel struck steel. The noise was strange, somehow more painful than receiving the blow, but Elehnae thought little of it when her Lord Rhaesys charged again and he met Gaerion’s sword, parrying with ease. The young lord let out an infuriated growl before he lunged for Elehnae’s brother. It was obvious, even to her who had only just come in the middle of their duel, that Lord Rhaesys had not been expecting Gaerion to challenge nor withstand him for this long.

   Shining violet eyes peeked over a broad shoulder and met Elehnae’s with a smirk twitching up its owner’s face. “Ah look, Gaerion, your lovely sister comes to deliver you from my hand.” and all the attention in the yard came upon Elehnae even Gaerion tilted his face to a side, an act that she would berate him for later.

   Why would he fall to such a misdirection even if it was for her? Elehane straightened herself to a pose and cut an stolid face at her brother. What in the name of Arrax is he doing? Do not look away from your foe.

    Elehnae’s disapproval was unfounded for the span of next few breaths, it was Rhaesys who found himself standing bent over at an awkward angle, her brother’s blade pressed against the left side of the young lord’s neck, imprinting a thin line painfully on the skin there. Gaerion’s thin-bladed sword whistled through the air as Gaerion struck at his opponent’s lead thigh. A loud clang resounded as Rhaesys stopped the blow with the guard of his sword. Rhaesys countered with a clever twisting stab that caught Gaerion’s on his blade wrist and sent icy needles shooting up Elehnae’s arm and shoulder as the nervousness for the spar became even more tense as each combatant proved degrees of perfectly honed sword craft in their contest against at each other.

   “The low common boy shows great aptitude for having skills not expected of him.” the whispers began to breeze closer to Elehnae’s ears.

   “If he matches one son of the Lord Archon in swordplay, would he contend likewise with the others?”

   “By the jaesi, I would think you’re on the verge of heresy, Dalanyon.” A snorting remark echoed back. “A low common on par with one of the dragonblood? Ha! That would be least likely. And Rhaesys is simply toying with the boy. Do not, for a breath wasted, would you think any but of a peer dragonblood could contend with another.”

   Elehnae huffed quietly but did not look away from the still ongoing duel. If she could hiss at the nobles without fear of reprimand or worse, she would. If those who spoke such idiocy would only keep their mouths shut and have their eyes reveal all that needed to be proof against what they believed was the true worth of skill.

   “Would you not stop this?” Doryr raised himself to whisper closely at her. “That is why I brought you here, Elehnae. Stop your brother before he earns himself the ire of the Belaerys.”

   “I will not.” she rasped back through tight lips, lilac eyes brightening with interest. Not even the instructors or higher ranked soldiers present had impeded into the spar. Nor would they deprive themselves and all these faineant low lives some amusement. “I will let this play out.” Let them see, Gaerion. Let them see us.

   The young Lord Rhaesys, like his five other brothers had been trained since they had been old enough to stand on both feet and handle practice wooden sword, studying the martial arts of blade, bow and spear just as any child of Valyrian dragonblood would be expected to be. Elehnae and Gaerion had not yet been brought to the Belaerys’ keeping when the elder sons of the Lord Archon had been ready and sent off to serve in the Aegium but they’d been present to witness the stringent training afforded to the younger ones. As though Gaerion had began later and lacked the precise attentions of an infamously formidable blademaster as Zhao Ruyen, Elehnae’s brother had not shrugged off his own learning nor wasted any brief moments he could steal away to practice. So the third son of Archon Daemor Belaerys may have garnered his years of skill from one of the deadliest blademasters from YiTi, but Gaerion had spent twice as much time and put in thrice the effort to make up for the little training he’d received.

   But which would turn out to be greater? Raw talent or honed skill?

   Elehnae heard her brother clearly wincing as he disengaged from yet another clash, seeking a temporary reprieve. Just as it was clear to not just Rhaesys that Gaerion was starting to falters. One of the challenges of fighting one of the dragonblood of Valyria was that because of their swiftness and strength, they could lunge forward and engage an enemy at distances far greater than any other could. It was some thing to their blood, an admirer had once divulged to Elehnae. Thence, to be safe from Rhaesys, Gaerion had to move nearly ten feet away from him merely before Elehnae’s brother could put much distance between them, Rhaesys sprang after him, taking two flying steps, his silver gold hair braided in four long plaits whipping behind him.

   Gaerion swung at him while he was still in the air, but Rhaesys turned so that his sword passed along the length of his body, without touching it. Then he slipped the edge of his blade underneath Gaerion and knocked it aside, leaving his chest completely exposed. Fast as he could ever bring himself to counter, Elehnae’s brother brought his blade up and pressed it against the young lord’s neck, this time underneath Rhaesys’ chin.

   “You are quick on your feet and guarded well by your instincts. You have learned some good tricks, jaos.” He held Lord Rhaesys in that position. Gaerion’s slanted, wide-set amethyst eyes only inches away from hers. “But it will not be enough against me.” There was a ferocity and intentness to his expression now, deadlier and untamed that Elehnae was uncertain if she should find a way to end the spar before things got even more laconic or leave Gaerion to device his own way out of or through this. And almost as if her brother could sense her apprehension, Gaerion locked eyes with her and Elehnae found within his a combination of determination and defensiveness, as if he was challenging her to attempt to pry him from this circle of blades and pride.

    But he was also afraid of what would happen if she did. Even more doubt welled up inside Elehnae suddenly. She had sworn to not only ensure his future but also to shield him from his own recklessness - challenging a Belaerys heir to a spar was one of his greatest heights yet. But she held herself away. It was already too late to interfere, doing that now would only wound Gaerion’ reputation amongst the soldiery.

    She watched still, when Gaerion stepped back from the young lord and ducked underneath the blow, letting it bounce off his thin blade, before bringing his weapon up and around, as if to cut Rhaesys across the legs and hips. Rhaesys blocked Gaerion with his sword, then shoved him away, knocking the air forcefully from him, from the sound of Gaerion’s panting. A brief lull followed about the training circle. More and more had gathered as the match prolonged and every eye trained on the two young silver haired combatants as they circled each other, both searching for an opening to exploit. The air between each spectator was fraught with tension as Gaerion studied Rhaesys and contrariwise, their movements quick and jerky, almost wyvern-like.

   Rhaesys struck at Gaerion and he parried, their blades moving with such speed, they were nearly invisible and Elehnae all but gaped at the display that  her brother was putting up against the young dragonlord.

   He thinks he’s better; that he could best a dragonblood. And maybe he is. But perhaps Gaerion may very well overestimate his expectations against him. They would be her brother’s undoing, if anything was.

   Gaerion sidled forward a few feet and smiled at Rhaesys even as he had smiled back at him. Even if his face stayed imposingly blank. A moment later, Rhaesys charged, as if he was going to tackle Gaerion and drive him to the ground. Gaerion sprang backward, edging to the right, so as to begin guiding him in the direction he wanted. Elehnae’s brother stopped short several yards away from the young lord Belaerys and remained as still as a wild wyvern caught in the sights of a hunting drake. Gaerion crossed the intervening distance with a single bound and began swinging with heavy, looping blows that Rhaesys deflected off.

   Lord Rhaesys let him attack without opposition, as if his blows were too strong for him to do anything more than defend himself. With every loud, painful jolt of Gaerion slim blade on Rhaesys’ arm and shoulder, the young lord retreated farther to the right, stumbling now and then to increase the impression of being driven back. And still Rhaesys remained calm and composed - void. Elehnae knew that the opportune moment that would turn the hand and advantage that her brother seemed to think he had, was going to arrive even before it did, and once it had, Lord Rhaesys acted without thought or hesitation, without attempting to be fast or slow, seeking only to fulfill the potential of that single, perfect instant. As Gaerion’s sword descended toward Rhaesys in a flashing arc, he pivoted to the right, sidestepping the blade while also putting the sun squarely at his back.

   The tip of his sword buried itself in the ground with a solid thunk. Gaerion turned his head, so as to keep Rhaesys in sight, and made the mistake of looking directly into the sun. He squinted, and his pupils contracted to small, amethyst spots. While he was blinded, Rhaesys stabbed his sword underneath his left arm, poking his in the ribs. He could have struck Elehnae’s brother on the nape of his neck and should he had, none here would fault him for putting Gaerion to his bleeding place; it was the prerogative of his dragonblood after all. But the young lord refrained, for some unwarranted reason regardless he still Elehnae’s foolhardy brother a token of his.

   Gaerion let out a sharp cry as the shortsword made contact with skin, extracting crimson penance, right above the intended mark upon Gaerion’s cheek, and not so deep but enough for blood to track down to his chin. He fell back several steps but Lord Rhaesys did not stop there, he gashed his sword here, there and elsewhere, drawing bleeding cuts that had Elehnae choked on her own breath as her brother bore pain after pain of the young lord’s temper.She saw the gleam in his purplish eyes as he landed each wound that Gaerion was now too battered by pain to guard against; they shone with thirsty delight. If eh carried on, Gaerion would be dead and no one here would be any worse off - no one but Elehnae who would have lost her stupid brother.

   Looking at Gaerion with a sickening feeling, the blood dripping onto the marble ground from his arms, side, thigh and shoulder, Elehnae’s brother stood with his arm pressed against his side and his silver brow furrowed with pain as he stared at Lord Rhaesys with an odd visage; his blade fallen from his grip signifying the end of the fight. The young lord Belaerys grinned as he panted, sweat dampened the silver-gold stray strands of hair over his forehead and raised his bloodied instrument of victory to his mouth and licked off the blood stain from its edge, eyes bright with some dark, lascivious energy.

   Applause resounded through the training circle and Elehnae watched as her brother did not take his defeat well as he was about lunge for the young lord who had turned his back to him to greet. This time Elehnae moved to intercept and halt this mistake right off, but before she could, Elehnae saw the entrance of the guards who patrolled the private quarters. They would instantly recognize the threat that was her brother and punishment would be meted. And worse with them was Lady Saelanys, Rhaesys’ mother.

   Gaerion caught their presence as well and Elehnae sent a quick prayer of thanks to the Fourteen for his sudden caution. The Lady Saelanys was not a woman who shirked to show her mirthless pitilessness to any. And her children had inherited that trait which was why Elehnae could not fathom, for the breath of Meleys, why Gaerion would want to tempt such a thing upon his head by drawing blades with the most capricious of Lady Saelanys’ sons.

   Elehnae bent her knees as did every other soul around, heads lowered to the ground as the lady wife of Archon Belaerys walked by with her escort of guards and attendants. Elehnae heard the echoing snickers following the maids that shadowed the lady’s steps out of the yard and when she glanced her eyes upward, Elehnae saw the lady speaking to her son aside while also catching  the leering looks of disdain directed at Elehnae’s way from maid attendants before they rejoined behind their lady and disappeared around the corner of columns. Regardless Faeyel and Noreah knew better than share snarks and snickers to her face, them she would have a later time to remind them why but now there was someone else who needed to be handled.

   Elehnae turned to her brother then, a vile disparagement ready on her lips for his brazen challenge of a dragonblood in their own home. He had to have realized in the short ten years they’d been here that a slight as simple as showing off to the dragonblood of Belaerys would land them in even deeper shit that their parents had brought them into this world with.

   Already Gaerion looked flushed, whether from exhaustion from his sparring or for his defeat, Elehnae did not really care to pick. But then her way to her brother was suddenly obstructed by a more broader figure which she recognized as Lord Rhaesys.

   The look he cast her before she abased herself in the courteous manner of a servant to a dragonblood, was one almost akin to the hostility thrown at her by his mother’s maids.

   “Ñuha āeksio,” she bowed her head, silvery curl of her hair got displaced from the ribbon and fell over her face.

   Not far as he had been moments ago, in the training circle of a few feet away and hindered by looming shoulders and crowding heads as they watched him tackling her brother in a game of blades and machismo, Rhaesys Belaerys bore a presence that was heralded by his dragonlord pride.

   A tall, leanly-built young man - perhaps her own age but couldn’t have been any more older than Elehnae - and nothing about him looked friendly or inviting. He had those fine dragonblood looks, just as many acclaimed Elehnae had been fortunate to have even from such low noble as her mother, albeit in a much different way. He had broad shoulders and a cold intensity to his sharp features, leering at Elehnae through his unruly, deep set eyes the color of ocean pearls, deep in violet but tinged with a rare blue from underneath sweat sleek, silvery hair that fell past his shoulders with a complexion of honey gold.

   Rhaesys is his mother’s son through and through.

   “At least one of you know your place before me though I would rather have you, lovely, in a different more pleasing position than this.” he spoke like honeyed milk but the words tasted rancid and gurgled up bile from the pits of Elehnae’s gut in response. However some of his entourage of noble sybarites and young soldiers jeered at his words, throwing her even more lingering stares. Them she could, and would, handle without any effort.

   She praised herself from not flinching when the young lord had his hand under her chin to raise her face so she may look upon him. Elehnae steeled her spine and caught her tongue between her teeth, masking her face in a meekly frightened and subservient mask she’d so much spent nights and early mornings practicing. Elehnae caught a strange smirk on her brother’s face through the corner of her eye but paid him no mind.

   “Tell me, how did you see the showing between myself and your brother. Be honest.” For certain I cannot be honest.

   “You proved worthier than most would against my brother…”

   Elehnae saw the flick of an arching brow on his expression and he asked. “But? I do sense a but coming in that assessment.”

   “But you would have done us the hopeful pleasance of toying with my errant brother for a bit longer if only to humble even more, āeksio.” that brought a sly smile upon his mischievous face. The hand he still kept under her chin, caressed a thumb to the bottom of her lower lip.

   “Pretty and cutting. Perhaps if your brother had those two in as equal measure as you, he wouldn’t suffer the fruit of his overreaching arrogance.” Lord Rhaesys denounced, falling his hand from Elehnae’s face to turn away and depart entirely from the yard, his crowd of portentous flatterers tailing him like flies about a mule’s arse. Elehnae went to Gaerion then, absentminded of the emptying space although a few young soldiers as her brother approached to render their encouragement and praise to Gaerion for lasting as long as he had.

   “You can be happy for me now, dear sister, even in your anger and worries you can be.” he spoke after a few moments of just watching her deal with his wounds. Elehnae undid the clasps to his light armor, peeling it away for the simple tunic underneath to reveal the areas where splotches of his blood had stained through. She took her hands to the most grievous of cuts, the one inflicted at his left side just under his ribs and pressed the halves of the cuts together with a palm of her hand to which Gaerion placed his over hers and drew his face closer to her own so that they shared the same breath in that here and now.

   “Why should I be? As I said he was only playing with you as a dragon would a wyvern. He’d have slain you right there and then where would I be. Where would I be without you, Gaerion?” she scolded him with such an intensity of annoyance that it cracked her stolid composure but fortunately there was no one about to witness.

   “Oh, was that why you said that to him? You were not just telling him what he wanted to her. Not that if you insulted him he would not have lapped it up so long as you kept smiling at him. I had been expecting you would come earlier. What, whoever you ensnared in between your thighs too lazy to have you satiated fast enough?” Elehnae scoffed and shook his hand off to see that the injury had well and truly sealed to a fading pinkish scar on his bronzed skin so she rose back to her feet and glowered.

   “See to your wounds yourself, just as you see to every silly tantrum you throw that would inevitably ruin us.” she cursed at him.

~♤~

   The evening’s arrangements was to be in the inner garden of the palace, the decision having been made by Lady Saelanys, second but most favored wife of the Lord Archon, so the stewardess of the household had informed the servants and slaves as well as what she had sent to the private resident chambers of the Belaerys family. It was how Elehnae had gotten wind of it once Elehnae and the other maids had returned from finishing errands and chores for Lady Eramaera. The elder of the Lord Archon’s sister-wives, rarely made such domestic plans about the household and most times took her meals in the open verandah on her private wing of the palace and sometimes with the irregular company of her daughter whom Elehnae was a personal attendant to. But such plans was always sent ahead just in case Lady Eramaera had different agendas for the evening and would join the other half the Belaerys family for supper - which never happened in the years Elehnae had been under her service.

   Elehnae had regardless gotten her own mistress ready, setting her bath in butter milk and lavender oils. Dressing up her silver white hair, she had let fall free, with ribbons and pearls, after the young lady had gotten into gown of sangria with cloud grey accents on the hems. It was a naturally blistering evening that had settled a dewy smog over the ambiance as the climate in the capital was wont to be this time of the year so Elehnae had applied on the young girl a light musky scent that was both flowery and had a brash burn to its edge like dragon’s tongue.

   “I like this. Is this new, Elehnae?” Lady Jaelyra remarked as she got the whiff of the scent exuding from where Elehnae had dabbed at the slope of her neck. The girl was much younger than Elehnae, slenderer and had an ample lack of flesh at the hips as Elehnae did. But the favor of Syrax had been bestowed on Jaelyra’s delicate features of her face, like a wyrmling, heart-shaped face with some angles to her cheeks and round iris eyes.

   “Yes my lady, I got it this afternoon in the market. I thought you would appreciate even more than I do.” Elehnae said softly, brushing a few drops into her hair till it glimmered with silkiness. The young girl smiled so heartily at her that it was hard to be reminded that Jaelyra was sister to a person who had riddled her brother in cuts and agony.

   Lady Jaelyra went to where one of five remarkably crafted wooden boxes rested and unclasped a set of bronze lock to take a piece out. The necklace she had pulled made even Elehnae gasp in appreciated awe. It was made from nigh diamond gemstones and garnets; the rarest of the kind if Elehnae could judge from this far and what skill she had gained from discerning gifts left to her by lovers. The craftmanship was a few decades late in latest styles yet it could still be lauded for its singularity.

   “I’ll wear this tonight, Elehnae.” the girl flittered like a bird on its new flight, giddy and flushed. Someone had given her this, Elehnae surmised. Though being the only daughter of the Archon of Valyria and ever being in his highest favor, Jaelyra was constantly showered with treasures and keepsakes that none of her other siblings had had a right to deserve. And neither did they fault her or despise her for her monopoly in the affections from their father, they joined him in spoiling the girl with attentions and gifts. But this one told a different sort of affection, a gift of such beauty could only be interpreted by someone like Elehnae who’d constantly been on its similar receiving end.

   “Who’s this from, then? Your lord father?” Elehnae wore a teasing smile as she walked over to her, eyeing the jewelry to the same extent of want and disdain.

   Jaelyra shook her dainty little head. “No. It’s from Bereon. He’s just left Heliand for somewhere in the far east, so his letters say, but he sent this along for me. I reckon it was crafted in the Forge Towers.”

   Ah yes of course. One of your brothers. “It is magnificent. It must have taken your brother much of his charms to convince the magesmiths to fashion such a thing of beauty and not one of their fabled weapons.” Elehnae gave truthfully as she trailed a finger along the glittering gems

   Lady Jaelyra laughed, the sound screeched in Elehnae’s ears more like a noisy squawk. “Yes, Lord Bereon is full of charms. Here, help me with it; I must be joining supper. I’m sure my secondmother would be less put out for my lateness should I show her this.”

   More like she would turn her anger to her sons for not being the source of your admiration. Lady Saelanys was ever trying to make her niece into a fitting bride for any one of her three sons, preferably her eldest, Aeralon, when she should have, in fact, been trying to keep him out from between the legs of every pretty boyservant he met. It was an aspiration that nonetheless was not supported by Lady Eramaera.

   And almost at the thought of the woman, the doors to the chamber pushed open for Jaelyra’s mother to enter. Eramaera Belaerys was no longer the waif woman who mused the sculpture by the west garden but on this stifling evening when everything was melting, the lady glittered like ice. Her gown was of lustrous pale-blue silk so liberally woven through with silver thread that it shimmered in the cast light from the suspended dragonglass bulbs that trapped the illuminations supplied by pale flames high above their heads. There was no crown on her head however there was no doubt who truly led the blood Belaerys, respected more in the absence of her brother-husband.

   She was a lady not to be dismissed just because she led a secluded life in the palace. She granted what attention she could deem to whoever proved was worth it and Elehnae had come to deign that everyone were as children in the lady’s sight. Unlike her sister-wife, Eramaera was stern and unforgiving in her quietude, intimidating with just the winks of the arraigning beads of ocean pearls and sapphires in her usual braided bun of moon pale hair and when she indeed gave you audience it was all Elehnae would do not to shrink from the pair of brimming dark purple eyes as burning as the tongue of the lady’s great dragon. It made serving the lady quite uneasy yet also filled with intrigue.

   “Riña muna,”

   “Riña,” the two of them muttered in greeting, except that Jaelyra ran on light feet to her mother and pressed cheerful kisses to her cheeks while Elehnae descended into a bow.

   “Gevie rūklon,” Lady Eramaera called her jovial daughter with a softness that was not reserved for any one else. “What has you in such a mood? Don’t tell me you find such joy in sharing supper with your aunt and nephews more than you would with me.”

   “No mother. It is this.” she gestured to her neck where the jewelry gift now rested. “A token from Bereon.”

   Elehnae watched the lady’s face closely now, seeking to see how she would take this new token of affection between her children. It should not be anymore acerbic as Lady Eramaera would take to any other choice; the dragonblood of Valyria had long since practised the sacred rite of sanguineous matrimony. And though any one of Jaelyra’s brothers would do, the Lady Eramaera, given her dislike for her sister, must prefer one of her own sons as a spouse for her only daughter.

   Just as Elehnae presumed, Lady Eramaera looked satisfiable pleased with her daughter’s confirmation.

   “That is all well and fine. But I do hope he isn’t spending all his time raiding jewel merchants to find gifts for you. He was not given leave from his regiment to gallivant about the continent and send back treasures for you.”

   “I am sure he knows that, Mother. Do you suppose he would return in time to escort me to the Rōvēgrie Tymptir?”

   “Nyke pendagon daor. Then you must be away to supper now, gevie rūklon. I have need of Elehnae for the evening.” and the lady turned her bright purple eyes over to Elehnae for the first time since she had entered her daughter’s rooms. Lady Jaelyra nodded and left her to the taciturn attentions of her mother.

   “You have been ever candid in your duties to my daughter, Elehnae.”

   Elehnae was quick to affirm the litany which would gratify her more towards this great lady’s side. “I aim to please, my lady. You placed great trust my brother and I, taking us under your employ. It is only by your grace that we yet live.”

   Eramaera Belaerys had been the beacon by which very many daughters of the dragonblood of Valyria and twice as much of their sons besides, were being scaled and compared. Not many daughters had been elevated in the Anogeion to such a position as hers. In all truth, it was said that there had never been any, save for less than a handful few, of her like who had not sat the Anogeion in centuries. An early rejection to wed her brother in favor of pursuing more advancement in the Aegium, and when the last Archon, Laeriar Maghynir, had offered her a Primarchon she had refused at least twice. Many had speculations as to her true aspirations till the moment of Archon Laeriar Maghynir’s death and the contention for his successor had sealed the doors of the Anogeion in conclave and Lady Eramaera of the blood Belaerys had been raised to the naming alongside her brother.

   Albeit it was Daemor and not Eramaera who had been anointed in blood and fire to take the Exalted Seat, word had spilled out from conclave that the contention between brother and sister had been far and wide with the latter in sight of triumph. How she had lost her shot at the ultimate power of the Known World had and would remain a mystery to none but both Eramaera and her husband.

   “Yes although it would seem that your brother is not as grateful, what with his abase behavior with my nephew earlier.”

   “Forgive him, my lady. My brother has ever kindled a dragon’s wroth especially when a blade is placed in his hand.” Even at the mention of her apology in her brother's place and for both their sakes, Elehnae knew she would be apologizing for Gaerion for as long as he continued in the manner he was. She had already forgiven him for today and the way he had spoken to her but she would not forget. Her brother needed more lesson in comportment than in the way of the blade.

   “He gets that from your mother’s sire. He shows great skill with what little has been afforded him by the arms master, shame that he would be wasted in a base regiment.” The lady had turned to something that had drawn her gaze to the wide balcony as she pondered aloud. Elehnae followed her line of sight to catch two wild dragons that had dared past the palace grounds and were clawing and chasing at each other’s tails.

   “Whereas you, you show your skill in more deft ways yet with just as much brazenness.”

   Elehnae blinked, surprised at the words. Lady Eramaera turned to her and she saw she was smiling, though the countenance showed nothing of humor or delight in her eyes. Lady Eramaera eyed Elehnae intuitively. “Do not think I have taken no notice of you, girl.”

   She gestured for Elehnae to follow in step with her as they exited the bedchamber to enter the hallway. “Which is why tonight, I have chosen you alone to attend me on a very delicate company that I shall be entertaining. My husband has taken leave for the evening and my sister is occupied with fawning over the children. I will have mine own dealings with your help.”

   “Yes my lady.” Even as Elehnae let the breath of relief exude from her and the question of what purpose she could possibly serve the lady could be. It also excited Elehnae to some degree that she was invited into a confidence of such a notably compulsive woman as her. This was what she had wanted for, to peer through the opacity of politicking and glean some new advantage to aid her on her way. They did not walk for long before they approached familiar quarters that was taken by Lady Eramaera.

   It was plush and luxuriant in only the tastes of a great lady of a prestigious dragonblood could have, heretofore the servants had made ready the apartment. The hearth was stoked and with the hovering dragonglass luminated to low but steady glow to color the ambience in a soothing and complimentary to the color relation of the quarters. Thick rugs and tapestries hung to muffle even the slightest of sounds, and the fine furnishing were arranged around a low table, not the usual grand armchairs, without ostentation. An array of trays with delicate finger foods, fresh fruits and a glass decanter sided with two goblets. Not a feast, but enough to appear casual, hospitable.

   The bedchamber was locked from the inside after Elehnae had walked in, without any action by either her or the lady. Scented sticks burned in their places and instantly relaxed Elehnae as soon as she entered. Lady Eramaera got seated in the soft flamelight, an arm within reach of the proferred trays of food. Elehnae though had forced her heart to settle to a steady patter even as she sharpened her mind for whatever all of this entailed. Her mind raced with numerous possibilities that may have counted whether the lady had taken a lover and she wanted Elehnae to help guard her secret. Lady Eramaera had given much to allude to that in fact however taking lovers seemed more to her sister, Lady Saelanys, penchant instead.

   “Your purpose tonight is to be distracting and elusive. You know your way about a man’s attentions, yes? Sȳz. Then you will do just that to my guest tonight; you may have free reign about this room for that singular role. Perform this task well and I will see about changing things for your brother.”

   Almost as soon as Lady Eramaera’s instructions had been given to her, the lady gestured a wave to a stand of three stumps of twisted, blackened crystals and their wicks were lit produced tongues of hoary green flames that enjoined as one. It was only when Elehnae watched a man walk in being as if he were gliding, manifesting like smoke from a dormant volcano making it difficult to school her features from its shocked visage, did Elehnae realize what those stumps were. Qēlītsossa zīrtoti perzoti. Instruments of great sorcery that required even greater expertise and learning in working it. Even Elehnae, a worthy adept in some Valyrian magicks could only hope to share in such mastery.

   “Ao gōntan daor jikagon naejot mirre bisa syt nyke, gōntan ao, Eramaera?” he asked in a lilting accent to his High Valyrian, surveying the room with a light of appreciation scalding the violet shades of his eyes to an intensity that they could become a candle of their own.

   “No, I only know how you prefer an intimate gathering.” Lady Eramaera answered with an sidelong glance at Elehnae who sauntered across from where she had been standing. She took off the shawl that she had on her shoulders and lazily pulled the braids from her hair. In this light they would gleam in their release like a fountain of gold starlight and Elehnae did not have to look over shoulders to know that that alone had drawn the man’s eyes as quickly as she knew it would.

   The man wore his obvious middling years like a battered crown. His once golden hair had faded to an aristocratic silver and the lines carved to his face like scars from old wars fought not with swords but with silence and whispered threats. The eyes that tracked Elehnae as she went by the hearth to stoke some more heat into the room, were pale and sharp as broken dragonglass, and filled with so much interest that made Elehnae as comfortable as a deer would be in a lion's gaze.

   He shifted his footing and folding arms underneath light blue robes over a darker shade of tunic. “And who are you? I don’t recall seeing you here last time I dropped by.”

   “Qaryeos, this is Elehnae. She’s a new maid in hand of my daughter. But she’s shown she is capable of serving me prudently for tonight.” Lady Eramaera introduced as she waved to the decanter and goblets to which Elehnae moved swiftly to.

   Qaryeos raised a brow and stuck out a hand that had taken up one of the goblets to which Elehnae obliged. “New? I don’t believe I've ever heard the blood Belaerys was finally giving their sole daughter a companion? And I do believe I recognize her face.”

   “You would have seen some of it on her mother’s. You would recall Alyhra, she forwent her father’s match with a Mondaryen and wed that scholar.” Elehnae did much not to flinch from hearing her mother’s name spoken with such discard and derision.

   The man, Qaryeos hummed after a deep swallow of his poured wine. “Ah yes indeed. A foolish girl she was. I do hope you have better sense that your mother, girl. Beauty such as yours would be wasted if there isn’t any guile and ambition behind it. Yet too much guile will only lead you down to a grave.”

   “Qaryeos, if you would.” Lady Eramaera brought him away from Elehnae who could smell the wealth on him as easily as one of the scented sticks in the room. As she turned, Elehnae caught the contented smile on the lady’s face for her guest’s sudden absence of mind.

   Qaryeos pulled out a small scroll from inside the folds of his robes and went for one of the cushion divans around the small table, though his eyes wandered ever so often to Elehnae briefly as if he could not help himself. “In front of her?”

   “She is more my servant, though she’s terrible at cleaning up after herself much more other people. Besides anything I tell her goes into one ear and out the other anyway.” Lady Eramaera accepted the scroll from his hand and placed aside without much indication of interest for it.

   “Well I am certain you have lots of news. Or would you rather a much hardier drink to loosen your tongue?”

   “Thanks but I’ll manage with this fine press. From your own vineyards, I would hazard.” Qaryeos seemed to draw back his feral eyes to Elehnae and she brought herself closer to his side when refilling his goblet, leaning closer to have his senses cloud over with her nearness. “Is she that terrified of you or have you managed to train a scion to kneel, roll over and stay just as any other slave?”

   Eramaera laughed, “It isn’t terror but merely an indignant way of showing my displeasure. It worked well with my troops if you would recall.”

   Qaryeos gave her a bemused look, similar to the way Elehnae’s father used to give before a scolding. “Is that so? Wherever did you find such a beauty, Eramaera?”

   The lady sighed heavily. “Find is the wrong word, more like stricken like one of those catching diseases that afflicts the low men but she takes up living space and is of no use entirely except to pour wine and appeal to the sight.”

   “So, Qaryeos, am I to wait till after Rōvēgrie Tymptir before I hear whatever it is you have brought me?” Again Lady Eramaera urged with the appropriate mix of interest and mischief glinting in her eyes. So it was not as Elehnae had imagined. This man was not her lover but a confidant.

   Qaryeos nodded, pinching from the side of cake and nibbled with long fingers. “Aenesa and Meirlus Ygiar have gone missing, the last place they've been seen was in Tolos.”

   Lady Eramaera looked up from inspecting a fruit she took a bite of, “How long?”

   “Few moons, maybe. No one can be sure, you know how much they valued their seclusion they are.”

   “Then it should not have been cause to take note of unless it were serious. What about the children?”

   “There are talks that the youngest two are to come under Aegnnis’ custody. But I imagine if that was true then Maenarr would be demanding their return. The eldest is still somewhere on the southern continent, it’s been impossible reaching him.”

   An amused smile wove itself upon her mouth, “He can demand all he wants, Maegor Aegnnis doesn’t do well with demands.” The lady’s guest shook his head but Lady Eramaera continued. “Isn’t that how all that business with the Maghynirs and the Rhyons began?”

   Maghynir? Elehnae immediately recognized the name. It was a name akin to the highest of treason done against the Freehold in recent history and the family’s fate had been told and over told to emphasize the calamity that could befall any who sought the same travails to ambition.

   “I’m pretty sure either side never anticipated that to escalate that far.”

   “Most likely. Especially that worthless excuse of a hostile deposition.” Elehnae stood diligently through their conversation, knowing it was not remotely her place to even try asking them to explain what they were talking about even if Lady Eramaera had said nothing of not doing just that. She was to distract and charm, neither not in peppering questions about matters within the dragonblood society.

   Lady Eramaera snorted and dismissed it with a wave. “Please, I’ve heard about that whole dilemma from Aeganarr Valthalon to last me a lifetime.”

   “How the mighty have fallen I must say.” Qaryeos chuckled. “He was always the egotist, blind to bootlickers. Just like his father. There’s been rumors, you know.” Qaryeos brought up, leaning forward for the tray of sweetmeats but Elehnae crossed her hand over to take up the one that held an array of fish eggs drenched in a bowl of honey, her fingers grazed the back of his hand and Elehnae smiled to herself as she heard a sharp intake of breath from him.

   “What rumors?”

   “Not the sort, a repentant should want said about him.” He replied after clearing his throat. “They’ve been saying that after the failed abdication, Tyraegel’s been meeting with Aeganarr the Younger and Jacaereon Gontarys in secret. On separate occasions for the same dealings with the Asshai’i.”

   That seemed to severely intrigue Lady Eramaera as her stature on the divan she half laid on, straightened, awaiting more from her confidant. “And what dealings are those dragonlings having with the Shadow Lands?”

   “Remarkably they have managed to evade discovery or any leaks of their activities, my guess is they’ve handled it well with trustworthy middlemen.”

   They cannot be trustworthy if you managed to get that information in the least. Elehnae thought to herself and it seemed her lady agreed likewise as she repeated her thoughts in only so different words.

   “They wouldn’t have been so difficult to source. Valyria has only as much Asshai’i scholars filtering into any of our various archives and reliquaries. Yet it is pondersome that only a generation ago we in the Anogeion had to sit in hearing for a petition from the reliquaries concerning-”

   Lady Eramaera interjected, Elehnae caught the darting of her gaze towards her in a quick flash that if Elehnae had not be turned in an angle towards them, she’d have missed the leery glimpse. This was the first time she had ever seen the lady’s ostensibly concealing behavior. “I am well aware of what petitions was brought and what we denied Velnar Gontarys. You cannot mean that his son is seeking to revise his father’s works?”

   Qaryeos moved his shoulders in a shrug, munching rather noisily with crumbs falling over his trim silver beard. “I mean to say that this time should he come before the Anogeion, he would be endorsed by many more names than his father was. And that would become a tasking endeavor convincing the others for voting the same way they had forty years ago.”

   “And what does Zhoryae say about her heir lacking the better judgement of his sires in the Anogeion?” she spited.

   “She is rather preoccupied with dismantling an internal scandal scouring under her very roof. While one heir rushes to repeal mandates upon nightmares locked in anonymity, the younger one goes about gutting the son of a lord freeholder and feeding his sister to his dragon for daring to woo him. So Zhoryae now ferries the boy to Zelhorys, imposing a confinement upon him.”

   Elehnae gasped audibly while Lady Eramaera nearly spat out her drink in a fit of laughter that echoed through the room for several breaths. The shock of such brutality still reeled Elehnae on hearing it but then what else could she have expected from the lords and kin of the dragonblood. They were the dragon’s children and their wroth was so easily tempted and not so quickly thwarted.

   “The lords freeholders are beginning to overreach themselves, daring to proposition one of us in such a way; thinking a dragon would smother the flames in our veins by joining with them. The boy shows a rational response to such insult.”

   “Indeed yet it would hazard more thought when it is said that it was his brother who did arrange for such a disgraceful contract to be signed especially if he’s planning on soon showing public support for you know what.”

   “That’s a load of gremlin shit. Tyraegel is ever loyal to the Valyrian ideals, let’s not forget his father was a leading voice in support of Eamrys Maghynir and still he turned against him and sided with his mother. Why would he waste his own kin on a freeholder family that is not of the dragon’s blood?”

   Qaryeos shrugged, posing the enigmatic question. “One can only ponder on the dealings of the young and brazen. And was that not the same problems our fathers had with us at that age?”

   “On to some good news then, Nathaenya Celgyr got married this past month.” Qaryeos seemed contented even by saying it.

   “To who? I have been weary of the many suits that has sent the foolish girl into a tizzy of airs. As if she were the first to garner such attention.Vaerylla bless her mother for giving her more than her father’s name.”

   The man responded, “Lonarr, her half-uncle.”

   “What? That insufferable shit stain?” Elehnae couldn’t help but give out an diverted chuckle at that comment. It was not every eve one heard a distinguished lady such as Eramaera Belaerys curse like a sailor of Lōgor Guild.

   Even Qaryeos tilted up a smile. “He means to get in your husband’s good graces. With his brother yet too young, there’s an enviable title of a marshal up for grabs.”

   “Yes the Celgyrs are all a bunch of scavengers. But I’d have thought Nathaenya knew better.” Lady Eramaera shook her head wistfully. “And what does Haera Vohgyreon say about one of her former wards’ choice in a life partner? How many has she used to fill the holes of all her dead sons? Five.. or is it seven now?”

   Qaryeos gave a giggling sound unbecoming of a man such as his stature and obvious rank. “Almost about as much. She was in a delightful mood so much so she has refrained from paying or attending the blessed union. If Lonarr Celgyr has managed to snag such a lovely bride then he might as well pay through his dragon’s teeth for the wedding. Although I am surprised Lady Haera even allowed it to go further perhaps Lord Ragaer has had enough of her interference.”

   Lady Eramaera huffed. “As if anyone would stop Haera Vohgyreon from getting her way, least of all her son. Would that he could find the time to anyway, I hear there’s been some scuffle with the Template lately - concerning some mischief with the Vohgyreon boys. It would seme the jaesi cannot spare we their mortal kin from rebellious children.”

   Elehnae wondered if she was thinking about her son and his live and let live attitude to his Aegium consignment; straying command just to shop for gifts for his dear, lonely sister.

   “Hmm, a shame then. It would’ve been good to see Ragaer’s wife at the wedding.” Elehnae could only shake her head at the callous lechery of Qaryeos’ reply. “Alystrea of Lys does tend to be a pleasing sight to bear. Not as much that voluble mother-in-law of hers.”

   Elehnae decided to then put some distance between her and them. She meandered to the stack of books and scrolls that remained on a side table in the area of the room where the lady must do some of her dealings and letters. Elehnae absently picked up a book lying at the closest reach, a green leatherback with dusty spine that she had to wipe away to read the title - Parallels of Tactile Apparatus. She didn’t want to keep listening to those two discuss people with names she hardly had a way of placing faces to. Yet even the pages of the book read of even more confusing sentences about “cultural patterns of migrational species in the Tenderest”, whatever that meant.

    “And what’s this I hear about Aerys Varezys retiring? I’ve never heard of a lord freeholder receding his power just for the wish of spending his last days retiring somewhere in the Lands of Always Summer.”

   Qaryeos snickered, “That is because he isn’t retreating out of choice. He is largely in debt, terribly so if what I hear is true.”

   “But then Aerys has been in debt to one freeholder, some dragonblood or the other, since the day he was born. My husband rightly said that his family’s wealth wouldn’t survive to his maturity. Yet he is only now going belly-up? Something is amiss, he may be playing at it just as it has twice before.”

   “It doesn’t look like it this time. He has been selling his lands and borrowing against his investments in the mines and assets in the colonies, while he stomps around playing to wealth he does not have a single draconi to prove; he really thinks he has the strongest claim to his cousin’s title and seat. You’re aware of the Selhorys incident?”

   Lady Eramaera tsked, but wore a delighted smile that I saw reached her grey eyes; stirring it into a silver cloud. “Tragic for an entire village to be taken by unprecedented forest fires, leaving no survivors.”

   “Except there was, just one.” the lady raised a perfectly shaped brow at that, clearly surprised or… dismayed? “A village girl he has invited to his manse as a gesture of solidarity as he puts it but he never lets anyone see her; keeps her locked up in his private suites. Pretty little thing; one wonders what that licentious brat is doing with her.”

   Both Elehnae and the Lady Eramaera rolled their eyes and the former agreed with her lady’s response “No one wonders, Qaryeos. Not on simple things as that. Our hold on the borders is falling to chaos. I have counseled my brother on immediate action.”

   “No you have counseled that he send you to act immediately, Eramaera. Those are very different things.”

   “Either way it is a wise counsel. Go to war, strengthen our borders and consolidate what my father and Laeriar Maghynir fought for the glory of Valyria. Remind the Lorathi, the Norvoshi, the Qohorik and our daughter-cities what it means to tempt the dragon’s wrath.”

   “Such a campaign takes time, coin and men, all of which we possess and more. But you know your brother better than most, he will not give you such a command. The last time you held such power you threatened his ambition and look where that landed you.”

   Lady Eramaera smirked, the flame light of the candles bringing a queer shine to the depths of her eyes, that told much and far less than what the lady meant by, “And who said anything about me having command?”

Chapter Text

    When the hour drew near of when Morzanys should hinder across his sister-bride, Syvaris, the sun fell to the west in marked symbol of their reunion. It turned the the horizon cast over the city of Mantarys, of dusky clouds like a lulling force draping itself over the world. It was at this time of the day, that one could truly see the beauty of the peninsula, especially from this old Valyrian city of Mantarys.

    The spreading outbursts of flaming orange, lurish pinks and beaten golds shimmered the not-so-distant water founts that had been made into channels from the Seat of Sighs, to crisscross just as the dragon roads into the city and their neighbor of Oros flickered into illumination the skyline of glittering geodesic altars, black-paved streets and eloquent topless minarets that greatly populated the cities of the Valyrian civilization.

    It was the twelfth hour – the third and final path taken by Lady of the Dawn, droves of devout Mantarysi scurried to the looming shadow halls of Morzanys for their prayers; most would remain on the steps of the temple and those that found their way early would be contained within the consecrated halls that went beneath the mount which the Temple of Morzanys the Ashen stood. Tary being one of thirteen hundred acolytes was obligated to join the lesser host of the great god’s voktys in conducting and seeing to the rites of devotion.

    He was part of a group tasked with ushering in the early swarm of worshippers, ensuring none of them wandered too far away or strayed upon the ever shifting labyrinthine caverns that had been built into the templemount.

    Tary had heard, through his time in the temple, stories of such disappearances happening. Some of the older acolytes told ghostly stories to the every new arrival of how the temple consumed both willing and unwilling offerings. 

    Morzanys was the Valyrian deity of nightfall, obscurity and the unseen; praised for his utter control of the many, great and primal forces that lingered and thrived in the dark but he was also known as the Stalker. He lingered in the shrouds of his own darkness, trailing the steps of those who incur his wanton hunger just as he chases Syvaris only ever getting so close to her at setting of the sun yet unable to take her. Thus was their eternally tragic courtship. And Morzanys consumed all those who fell into his path for his bride. Whether these tales were true or false fabrications made up by bored older boys seeking to scare the young ones, was something Tary had little time or concern to prove.

    The Temple of Morzanys was built, in similar styles as most places of worship of the other Valyrian jaesi: circular and tiered like the crown that wrests upon the brow of Arrax Jentys. Yet to hail the god of shadows and the night, the entire structure of the temple complex was carved with walls of blackstone and steps of obsidian, rising upon the face of the mountain on the westernmost reach of the city which fell to Morzanys’ shroud foremost before everything else in the city.

    From his readings, Tary could see what inspirations the architects employed for the marvels of Valyrian temples - the great fathers of their civilization - had drawn from far older structures in the far east of the Shadowlands of Asshai though they may call him by a different name or pay him reverence by odder deeds.

    As was part of nightly devotion rites for their temple, two pairs of outstanding graven doors were set to the entrances of the temple - one to west that welcomed the shades of night who heralded their father and his worshippers, and one in the east that remained forever shut from the sun rays in the day.

    The space through both doors were sparsely lit by glass globes the size of a child’s head which hovered in the air, high and high to near enough reach the peak of the mountain. The path to the altars below, meandered out like a black adder in shade grass and only acolytes and voktys knew their way upon it. Dark light struggled through the stone effigies, casting even longer shadows of each passers-by on the floors and on the walls. For a newcomer or even most who had paid nightly rites to Morzanys, these halls could cast an even more unsettling pall over their minds that would transform their dreams to nightmares ever so quickly.

    It was the same for Tary. His first year here at the temple, he had all but been dragged under the embrace of Morzanys the Ashen, for naught else but his protection and survival against blades and flame that would have claimed him in the night. Who better to seek sanctuary from that jaesi who owned the shadows that those assassins cloaked themselves in.

    Thirteen years had passed since that fateless night and Tary had made some of those shades his own friends; he had gifted them new names and they had guided him through his tutelage of the ways of Morzanys.

    Now he did not shirk from their touch or shiver from their hushed whispers, he reached back and gave some of his words back to them. He learned much in his service to the great god of the Nine Shadows and there were even far more knowledge to acquire should Tary take his oaths in the coming dusk of his name day. He had risen in the tiers and teachings and gained the shroud, learned the sacred worships and secret rites,yet 

    Tary felt loath to give himself over entirely. Whatever life he may remember to have had, that he had initially felt bereaved for, Tary knew there was no going back to that. No matter it did not shake him from it wholly. And there was no need taking oaths to one of the jaesi if it was not all of yourself that you were binding to them. 

    What is the worth of sacrifice then?

    The altar presented itself from the gloom of the antechamber where scores of bowed heads on bent knees of worshippers prostrated themselves in an arrangement of coaxial circles, converging towards and inwards to the altar chamber where the voktys and the High Mysteriarch conducted the devotions beneath the looming shadowy embrace of the forty foot tall graven statue of the ashen god Morzanys where it was carved to the front wall of the cavernous chamber. 

    At his stone feet, atop the flat sphere of an altar, sat a brazier so wide it could hold three men lying prone side by side, on its golden rims were etched three concentric rings of sorcerous glyphs that marked its purpose.

    Standing on either sides of it were the two of the highest ranked persons in the Temple of Morzanys; Voktys Glaeris and High Mysteriarch Melgyr. The former was a man of sternly incisive forbearance and demeanor that just looking at Voktys Glaeris felt like Tary was cutting himself on his sacrificial blade. He was bald of head, thin and angular like a sliver of dragonglass, with a singular glyph carved and inked at the spot just between and above where his brows would have been had they not been shaved.

    The High Mysteriarch on the other hand had a kindly face with short trimmed silver beard that had the greying streaks in them quite visible in this low light. A kind face and genial manners, he may have but his eyes were a different tale. They were usually likened to a pair of flames, tinged by a color not a mere purple as most Valyrians but at an angle they looked a bleeding red and at another the deep blue of pre-dawn.

    Every one of the acolytes at their temple had stories to fabricate on such a strangeness not seen in anyone else but the truth was clear; such was the mark given to a sorcerer at the height of his prowess in one of the higher mysteries - blood magic.

    Melgyr Nohtigar was not particularly a tall man but he stood a foot taller than Voktys Glaeris and most other voktys in their temple. He was heavily robed like his companion but instead of the somber grey of the voktys’ apparel, it was a lambency of pristine white embroidered with the mantle of his position and calling as a sorcerer prince.

    Tary knew what the brazier would serve for and so did every soul who had come beneath this day’s dusk knew that an offering must be made. Like every altar in the Template given unto the worship of any of the hundred and more gods of Valyria, the offerings were to made in blood and by fire, and Morzanys was no different from the rest of his divine kin.

    But while the devotion was yet to begin and the gathering of the god’s faithfuls was still filling the chamber, so too was the presence of Morzanys. And Tary could swear he could feel it as strongly as the first devotion he had attended here. 

    The wonted silence of the chamber was now filled with a phantasmal euphony, lovely and chilling. Tary looked to where the music was humming from, to the forefront where the acolytes, lined out, hoping to pick out Sorris in those row of hooded and bowed heads. But that would be pointless to say the least.

    Their voices unisoned in a rising and falling of tones stitched in a well crafted harmony of dirges. The chants were entreaties and praiseful adorations to the shadow god. The beauty of its lyrics worded in the chants of archaic Valyrian, echoing with significance and homage.

    Voktys Glaeris stepped a short length ahead of the High Mysteriarch, heavily robed in leaden grey with the accents of black curling flames at the hems and sleeves, and lifted his arms with his hands facing skyward, to the gathering.

    “Rijagon sagon Morzanys, ziry bona geron se bantis se ondoso sȳndor. Rijagon sagon ziry bona māzigon lēda se ēbrion.”  his voice rose higher to eclipse yet be supported by the continuous sonorous chanting.

    Tary, having led the last of the evenings devoted, in his robes that swept the floors and feeling the sudden heaviness of his faith at the first invocation, went to his knees where he stood. His head bowed and his mouth moved to the words of the subsequent invocations to Morzanys the Ashen.

    He repeated the litany of worship to his patron god whom he had diligently given nigh on fourteen years to, his heart filling with all his honest thoughts as he beseeched his divine patron for clarity of mind in the most plaguing of choices that was now placed before him.

    “Rijagon naejot ziry, ñuha āeksio jaes Morzanys,” Guide me, great master of the shadow. Reveal to me what lies ahead on my path.

    The bevy of voktys, Tary peeped when he glanced up in due effect to the protracted pause that stretched, had their usual shadow shrouds so low over their heads that it hooded their faces but for their painted mouths, and it trailed into a coal black continuance of their robes which efficaciously softened their shuffling sandals on the smooth marble floors. Two acolytes whom Tary recognized as Daerad and Vyeln had risen from their places, knowing what they were on about Tary returned his focus to the service and to his prayerful need for guidance.

    The weight of his decision to either remain and swear his oaths or abandon the Template waxed burdensome ever since Tary had painfully realized that there was even a choice to be made between those two alternatives. It had begun over a moon to this day, Tary had woken from a dream unlike any other he had ever had. Faces of long since dead family had haunted his waking mornings and danced to dirges that called to his duty as a son of his lineage; to pay the price of his blood. It had since brought things that Tary had believed was past him, to the fore of his mind and heart.

    Things of his name and his family. The obscure pall that had enveloped over his childhood years lifting as like a veil parting from that part of his conscious mind. Memories of his mother and father, the shades of their feet appearing and fading in an effervescent beam of light. Their whispers of night long tales and conversations that they may have shared with him, destinies and duties that came from being born of the dragonblood of Rhyon. 

    Taryeos of the blood Rhyon.

    That had been his name. That had been his heritage and the obligation which the ghosts accused him of forsaking. The memories assailed him every night for the past weeks as his nameday neared closer by each waking dawn and slumbering dusk. Sleep had consistently fled from Tary and his studies suffered greatly as was seen from the remarks reported by the voktys and mysteriarchs of the Nine Shadows to the Hight Mysteriarch.

    Such indecision and fraying contemplation to swearing to the Template and to Morzanys, was near as sacrilegious as it would be seen if Tary had taken out his cock and pissed at the altar of the shadow god. Acolytes of his age and stay on Template grounds should have already been stalwart in their future as perpetual servants to their god. Yet here was Tary, given unto Morzanys for over decade with only a week to his oath binding and he was wrought with dubiety.

    Show me what I must do. Please, I beseech your guidance. For woe is he who forsakes his duty of vengeance in his father’s name. And woe is he who found sanctuary in the halls of the Template then chooses to abandon it.

    So Tary was faced with the burden of what was to come upon him five days hence. It would have been better, a saving relief if Tary could share his troubles with one of the voktys, if only to have the advice of someone - anyone - who had faced such doubts of their service to Morzanys. But he had realized that sharing his own with any one of the elder faithfuls would have seen him punished as the tenets demanded.

    He could have gone to the very top, to the High Mysteriarch as Tary had since seen Melgyr Nohtigar as more than just the high head of their sect. Sorris had the sum of it when he had said that the High Mysteriarch showed more favor to Tary than was appropriate of their contrasting ranks. If any one could counsel Tary on what he should it would have to be the High Mysteriarch however he had not had the chance or the opportunity to share audience with him.

    A light bell chimed through the hall, the chantings of the voktys dwindled to a steady hum that still yet resonated from their cavernous alcove in the hall that it felt like the very walls and all the carved black stone effigies of the shadowlings sang to their hushed choruses. Tary, with the rest of the congregation, raised his head to see that Daerad and Vyeln had returned and with them had come the offerings.

    Tary needn’t have bothered to count the cluster of young boys and girls, clothed simply in stark grey and their unmistakeably copper complexion and dark hair, discernible in this midst of silver and golden haired Valyrians. He knew they would be fourteen of them, no more and no less. Fourteen for each of the Flames that fumed the land of Valyria with their molten rivers and enriched them with gold, silver and iron. Fourteen for the jaesi who in the beginning of days bestowed upon the Valyrians their divine ancestry.

“O tresy hen ēlī perzys, Morzanys qilōni jemagys īlva ezīmagon se bantis,2

“Qilōni jemagon īlva hen bantis naejot bantis, Morzanys qilōni urnēptre se sȳndor ñuhoso, aōha irudy pirtra isse lykemagon daor vestās. Tepagon īlva ȳgha geralbarī rȳ se eve ōño.”

“Qanemagon īlva laesi isse sȳndror, īlva ēngos isse lyka, īlva prūmi bōsa syt ao.”

“Ondoso ānogar se zōbrie perzys, iksi aōhon”

    This time it was Melgyr Nohtigar who led the chants as was his purview as the hand of Morzanys. The voktys were the god’s servants and voice through which his faithfuls heeded his decrees and abided by his practices but it was Melgyr Nohtigar, as High Mysteriarch of the Nine Shadows, who wrought the dark god’s will upon the world through the sacred mysteries of sorcery.

    It was the High Mysteriarch who performed all the rituals and bindings; the summons and sacrifices were blessed by the voktys but it was the High Mysteriarch who invoked the spells gained and worked from the blood offerings. 

    Every worship of the Template had their various sects accorded to whichever of the jaesi they each were devoted to and the reins of each of these sects was held by dual hands of both the voktys and a mysteriarch and sometime it was one of the fourteen High Mysteriarchs - as the temple of Morzanys was. 

    “Ondoso ānogar se zōbrie perzys, iksi aōhon,”

    “Gūrogon hen bisa ānogar tepagys se letagon īlva,”

    The voice of the High Mysteriarch was significantly contrary from that of Voktys Glaeris who spoke as if he had a bulb of lime lodged in his throat. Melgyr Nohtigar spoke with discerning clarity of  power and authority, as was needed in sorcery invocations.

    The slave offerings were drained into the garrulous brazier, filling its golden bowl to the rim just as the tiny perforated holes made to its bottom would have the blood drained through subterranean trails and pipes that would flow like the rivulets of a brimming river, to fed the smoldering molten hunger of the Fourteen Flames. All worships under the Template had such a system built under the hearth of their altars; a hundred and more temples consecrated inn devotion to the jaesi and they all paid their due in tides of blood offerings. 

    Such is the only way of proper worship. Blood must be offered.

    Voktys Glaeris, from the deeps of his flowing sleeves, pulled the sacred object of their worship - a dagger of pure and relentless Valyrian steel and took nary a step forward to where the slaves had been lined out and just as the voktys, acolytes and the congregation echoed the lyrical chants in increasing tones and High Mysteriarch Nohtigar continued his invocations. 

    Tary did not flinch when the slash of Voktys Glaeris’ wrist caused a rushing flow of crimson lifeblood from the first slave, and the second and then the third.

    The blood offering flowing and rushing in a tide to fill the gilded brazier, and as Tary had watched so many times when devotions culminated into sacrifice, the encirclement of glyphs on the rims of the brazier began to be alight and fed each fallen and emptied slave.

    The colors of the light changed as first his stones and then his stem burned away to nothing. Bright orange, vivid yellow, vibrant green, and finally a red of a like that he'd never seen before. Tary looked on as it seemed to float in the air above the brazier and then drifting to everything about it. The red almost looking to be everywhere as it floated above Voktys Glaeris’ and the High Mysteriarch beside it, glancing off stone and obsidian to beam and bathe every edifice, acolyte, and worshipper in its bloodied embrace.

    Then the world about Tary swam in shades too vivid to bear. Color bled from the edges of his vision – blues that screamed with the voices of sorrow, rage and exultation, crimsons that pulsed with a symphony of heartbeats and a rushing tide.

    Tary staggered through to his place before the altar, his limbs dragging as if he walked through oil, crashing yet finding the minuscule strength to catch himself back in a kneeling position, the air suddenly thick as honey. What little he remembered as his mind reeled from him, was Voktys Glaeris’ pale hand pressing the rim of the chalice to his mouth, the whisper of “You will see, you will break… you will find truth in shadow.”

    A pool of ink black water swelled before him, a mere hand’s reach from him. It gurgled. Tary reached forward and the pool took him in.

~♤~

    A rush of warm air, fragrant with perfumes and scented candles took over his senses. He was small again - no older than and just shy of six years. The room around him was dim, the soft orange glow of suspended bulbs of fire casting shadows that danced on walls of immaculately carved marble and painted alabaster.

    An entire wall covered in a murals of dragons, drakes and wyrm-chimeras. And there standing with her back to him, was slender form in a flowing gown of cerise red that showed bare white arms and a cascade of waist length pale golden locks.

    Muña.

    Her voice was low and as always as if she were singing, curling through the haze of the vision like the vapors of the perfumed spices she always had burned around her person. She turned around then, face half startled and concerned but all smiles. She was always smiling and her very pale blue eyes were alight.

    “Where have you been, byka perzys.”

    “I do not want to listen to Gontalos anymore.” he found the words spilling out even as Tary had no way of knowing how they had come so easily. “He is constant in boring me to sleep with each lesson.”

    He remembered the man that name belonged to; his old tutor whom he had had little patience for not when Tary wanted to spend all his hours with his mother.

    She laughed, the sound of it tingling as chimes of a distant yet in nod doubt the sweetest and saddest memories. “He is there to give you proper tutelage of your past, the legacy of those who have come before you in your blood. How can you know your future and bend the destiny woven by Tessarion when the past is hidden from you?”

    He tried to speak. No sound came. But his mother smiled, as if he had.

    “Before the stones of our great Valyria was set, before the Dragon was gifted unto us, we were born of and in fire. Blood, fire and glory. This is what we are to our very core. A truth of which you cannot escape, my son.”

    She opened her arms and took him into them. He was always smaller than he was in the embrace of his mother.

    “We were sheep once, hunted by all; caged and belittled, cut down by the griffins, chimeras and harpies. But with the greatest sacrifice to the Fourteen did we burn, thus were we transformed. We stood among the ashes of our former selves, every glory was bought in screams of our enemies. Every triumph paid over the ashes of their women and bones of their children. That is what it means to bear our blood. We are the flame given breath, the dragon in flesh of man, the scourge that consumes when provoked.”

    She drew him close. So close, to the warmth of her bosom and love of her heart. Her voice cracked, blaring out in a curdled scream of outrage and pain in their accusation. 

    “And we have been provoked. Taryeos. We have been wronged and yet the scourge has not be paid upon those of cause. Then why? Why, byka perzys?! WHY HAVE YOU WITHHELD THE FIRES OF OUR JUSTICE?!”

    The darkness surged to take him then and with frigid cold, flung Tary from the specter of his mother and into some other haunt.

    A field of grey snow, no ashes. Everything here now was in a ruined aftermath of a great conflagration. Bones made brittle under his foot by the inferno that had consumed this field, blackened trees loomed like phantoms, their still burning branches twisted into crooked claws.

    The world smelled of flame, ash and death.

    A burst of light flickered in the distance. The familiar glow of deep pervasive red and basking gold. A man stood haloed in its harsh glow. Tall as a dauntless tower, imposing stature of a master of war and conquest.

    Armor of segmented plate over his torso falling to a skirt leathered in gold, a helm of black metal scales covered his face save for slits that exposed those harsh lilac eyes lined with bright madness. The plumes of griffin feathers of his helm matched in color the singed but billowing cloak.

    When he raised his gaze from the devastation about him to the approach of Tary, he spoke. His voice booming like salvo of fire from the guts of an elder dragon.

    “You asked me once why I never smiled,”

    The child – no, he was a man now – wavered not as his father closed the space between them with a few strides.

    Tary’s heart thudded like war drums as he stood breast to breast with the man whom he had ever felt estranged from. Regardless that Alaerys Rhyon would spend several hours of the day that he was home with Tary; his father had ever kept most of himself apart from either his wife or his son.

    He showed Tary his splayed hands. They were dark and smudged in ashes and blood but from their fingertips flared a spiral of bright golden flames, without heat but scourged from magic and taking shapes - the burning heart of a dragon and its channels through its body.

    It seared itself in the air, Tary’s eyes following its bright ascent.

    “It is because I bear the weight of our gift. The burden of duty. It nay permits joy. Our name… it feeds on us, boy. The blood of the dragon sires many but only the few bears its fire. But do not mistake its purpose.”

    The conjuration of fire turned blood red.

    “Our forebears saw that our fate lay not on winged backs to claim the glory that is birthright to all dragonblood, so they went to the First Flame and paid the price. Blood and fire, blood from fire and blood unto fire. None other may take what has long since been given.” 

    He thrust his hand out and the spectral of fire moved at his gesture, to Tary who jerked back on instinct. His hands raised up to his face, eyes shut in fear and surprise. But after a beat that he felt not a singe of burning pain from the fire, Tary blinked to see that he now held the fire.

    “Se Sȳndor ōregon daor tresy hen Perzys.” Alaerys Rhyon pronounced, a commander of battle far afield, ordained dragonlord of Mother Valyria.

    “So I will ask again. Who are you?!”

   Even before the vision was taken from him, the answer and weight of it ripped its way from within him.

    I am Taryeos Rhyon. My father was Alaerys Rhyon and his father, Maerion Rhyon was son of Daeranys Rhyon, grandson of Malaevon Rhyon; a son of the First Flame. Their legacy is in my bones. Their flame burns free in my blood.

Chapter Text

    The hearth had long since burned down to ash and shadow, but the Ostys was gone from the space yet somehow her presence lingered like an after musk. Even before the golden hush of dawn of a new day crept over the horizon of the city and sifted through the cracks in the warped shutters, Zhatana had stirred in the dark, silent, stiff from sleep, and cold to the marrow despite the heavy woolen blanket slung over her shoulder like a mother’s embrace.

    The hovel, tucked into the roots of the cliffside and hidden from the rutted road below, smelled of dust, soot, and the faintest tang of salves. It had the scent of exile. Of survival. Of patience.

    Zhatana had never been good at patience. She sat on the edge of her straw-stuffed mattress, flexing the fingers of her right hand. The joints ached more with every day of recovery but they were mending. She went ahead with the rest of her injuries,  assuaging herself with thoughts of repaying those boys in kind, when next she sees them.

    Zhatana rose slowly, wrapped a faded threadbare blanket around her waist. Outside, gulls shrieked, and waves broke somewhere down the cliff, rhythmic and distant. The sea was always there, a quiet reminder of everything she had lost to its depths.

    The hearthstones shifted underfoot as she crossed to the cast-iron kettle, still half-full of the previous night’s stew. Zhatana stirred it with a wooden spoon and added a splash of water from the jug, then fed the fire three pinches of kindling and one breath of song.

   The spark caught on the second breath. By the time Zhatana ladled the warmed stew into a chipped bowls, the entrance of the hovel was opening to permit streamlines of dawning gold and pinks from yonder.

    About a towering and defined in a cloak over simple tunics. The woman’s name was yet a confoundment for Zhatana – Mineya Ostys. It sounded like a name that belonged not in this place. Zhatana knew little more than that. But she had found her beaten to near death; a stab wound to the abdomen, her ankle bent at a cruel angle three nights. Zhatana hadn’t said much. Ostys hadn’t pressed her and for that Zhatana was grateful for.

    The girl winced as she sat upright. Ostys approached without ceremony, crouched beside her by the hearth.

    “You look well rested. Good.” Ostys muttered, receiving the bowl handed by Zhatana and she saw the woman’s dark purple eyes staring at her bandages beneath her ribs. “Another day or so and you will be good to leave this place, should you wish. You will be with a scar but you’ll live.”

    Zhatana nodded, ate the stew, and said nothing. Her silence suited Ostys, she had come to find. Words were like wine – wasted early in the day. After breaking her fast, Zhatana cleaned about, taking the advice of Ostys that with regular movements – not too strenous – would work her back to strength. She swept the dust, folded the bedding, sharpened the dagger, polished her old greaves that hung unused from a peg in the rafters. 

    On the other hand, Ostys spent the morning of the next couple days tending to much simpler tasks about the hovel – fixing the loose latch on the door, stitching a tear in her uniform, cleaning her sword and daggers of which Zhatana was surprised to see were quite an awful lot even for a blade of the City Watch to have.

     Zhatana watched the woman she had been confounded whether or not to trust, in silence, taking in the way Ostys moved, the way he seemed at ease even with someone like her lurking in his home. It unnerved Zhatana. She tried to ignore the fact that, despite herself, she was beginning to feel less like a prisoner here. And soon as she was healed of her injuries she would leave this strange place and even stranger watchwoman and not think of them both again except in quiet gratitude for her life.

   Ostys spoke little and hummed nothing, not even as she scrubbed the dried blood from her cloak or hung fresh lavender by the shutter to sweeten the smell.

    It was a routine made from years of solitary practice, and yet Zhatana felt that her own presence here had changed it somehow – added a rhythm, a gravity to the quiet which the watchwoman was considerably used to. She was not sure why she was so invested in the woman and her person but it was a mystery Zhatana felt she had to know even a facet of. Perhaps it was the growing core of amity that had spawned from Ostys taking care of her and giving her shelter after so many moons of her lack of it.

    Outside, the sun had risen fully, and it washed the world in gold and breeze.

    “Come,” Ostys said finally, when the hovel held nothing more to do and Zhatana had used the basin of water to wash her limbs and face just after her bandages had been changed.

    Zhatana looked at her short haired woman of stern colored eyes. Ostys tossed her own cloak over her shoulder and offered her hand. “You’ve been inside for long enough. You’ll rot like a root if you don’t get some sun and fresh air. And I have some errands to run in the city. You could assist me with some of them.”

    Zhatana hesitated. Her foot was splintered, and her body trembled under the weight of even the morning light, but she nodded and took Ostys’ hand. They stepped out together. Zhatana groaned as she picked her body off, amazed and overwhelmed by the feeling that she was not as tired or worn out than she expected after the short hours of work about the hovel.

    The cliffside path was narrow, and the wind sharp, curling around them like the breath of old ghosts. Far below, the tide had withdrawn, exposing slick black rocks and tidal pools rimmed with salt. The sea glittered like hammered bronze, and gulls spun like white cinders on the sky. Ostys led them slowly, gently, one step at a time, her hand always on Zhatana’s arm.

   “Before you came to this city,” Ostys said after a time had passed and the hovel was a mere mound in the distance behind her, “your world may not have cared who you were only who you can stand to be. But here, it is different. This here is a land of blood and worth. You are either born with either or both or nothing and then you are judged by it all the rest of your life. Only when you know your place can you truly survive and thrive.”

    Zhatana didn’t answer. But her fingers tightened on Ostys’. They walked a little farther, to where the land curved in on itself and the cliffside became a small glade of bent pines and soft grass. Here, hidden behind the crag’s shoulder, the watchwoman had stashed her weapons belt which had her azandy, a spare cloak, and a wrapped bundle of coins. Zhatana watched as Ostys checked it all, swift and precise.

    Ostys donned her watchman’s cloak and belted her azandy to her side, catching the look on Zhatana’s face.

    “You’re not the first I’ve found bleeding in the streets nor will you be the last,” Ostys said at last, not looking up. “You’re just the first I have brought here. So don’t go telling just any body.” She smirked.

    Zhatana sat on a stone, pale in the morning sun. “Why?” Ostys paused then shrugged.

    “Maybe I was tired of silence.” The wind stirred the grass. A cloud passed overhead. And the day, still young and undecided, moved forward with the hush of a blade being drawn. “Not all good deeds have some falsity stitched underneath.”

    “You speak too well for just a soldier of the Watch. Pardon me for not thinking that a bunch of shit.”

    Ostys chuckled. “Fair point. But not everyone who speaks well do evil.”

    Zhatana glanced at her sideways. “That’s what evildoers always say.”

    Ostys’ laughter was quiet, but it softened something in her face. “You’re not wrong.” They walked in silence after that, the only sounds the occasional crackle of the leaves and twigs on the ground and the distant murmur of the city waking louder and louder as they trekked on. Zhatana liked but didn’t trust silence – it left too much room for thinking, for remembering.

    She asked. “What happens now?”

    Ostys studied her for a long moment. “That depends on you.” Zhatana hated that answer. She hated choices as soon as she had been dumped here by misfortunes to make all of her own herself. Life had never given her choices – only survival. And yet, here she was, sitting in a stranger’s home, eating warm food and even warmer quiet.

    By midday, the familiar glow of the city expanded to her field of vision. It was just as beautiful as Zhatana had first seen it whilst floating on that piece of driftwood. A vital golden glow, bright with a resplendence that Zhatana felt could not be replicated anywhere else. And yet it was damnable. The people twice as much.

    The City of Pleasures rose like a crown of smoke and rose-colored stone against the horizon, glinting with the afternoon sun, its high towers laced with silks that fluttered in the breeze like dragonfly wings.

    Ostys had said nothing more than, “We need bread, some meat, and oil. A whetstone and boots, if the coin stretches.”

    But Zhatana had not been particularly listening as her wounds ached and turned attention to caution. Her eyes moving this way and that, glaring at faces that passed to her left and right as she walked. Her fists clenched to her sides.

    They entered through the South Market Gate, where the air swelled with the smells of roasted spices, dried fish, and sweat. Hawkers cried out under awnings of green and gold. A trio of painted dancers spun barefoot on a corner mosaic. A bearded priest, robed in black wither accents of red, with silver-painted eyelids chanted verses about mercy through blood and judgment by fire while lasciviously eyeing a lane of pretty boys with silvery haired twice as long as Zhatana’s and wore little else but a sheer cloth over her waist.

    Zhatana stayed close to Ostys' side, her splinted ankle now wrapped tight beneath a supple boot the watchwoman had uncovered on their way. She limped, but she limped with purpose. They bought the bread and meats, Ostys conversing in japes with the baker and gestures with the butcher. But when they came to the oil merchant’s stall, Ostys only paused to speak in hushed tones to a man with too pale blue eyes who never looked directly at her. He handed her a small pouch. No oil exchanged hands.

    That was the first time Zhatana felt it: the shift in her companion’s voice. It dropped half a tone and sharpened like flint against stone. After that, the soldier’s steps became slower. More deliberate. She led Zhatana through alleys behind the market stalls, rounding corners and avoiding sentry patrols and away from the cries of vendors and into a quieter, shadier part of the city, like she was a common thief.

    The emblazons here were darker, fewer. The stones were wet underfoot though it hadn’t rained. Lanterns burned even in daylight. First it was to silk merchant, skinny to the bone and fingers full of rings of which Ostys exchanged for one of her own. Then it was to a counting house that Zhatana had to wait outside a closed door and hear mumbled nothings. When the door opened again, she caught Ostys secure a folded parchment inside her breast.

    Ostys stopped before a small house built into a hollowed tower, overgrown with ivy. The wooden sign hung crooked and read in that same unfamiliar script Zhatana saw overhead everywhere.

    Without turning, the watchwoman said, “Stay close. But say nothing.” Just as she had done the three previous visits.

    Zhatana’s stomach turned like spoiled milk, but she nodded. Inside, the air was thick with honeyed smoke and murmuring voices. The walls glimmered with golden thread and firelight. People did not look at each other here. They looked through each other. Ostys was greeted with no fanfare, only a nod from a tall woman with inked hands who led them to a low table behind a crimson curtain.

    Zhatana sat on a cushion beside her guardian, hands in her lap, eyes lowered. But her ears burned with listening. Three others joined them: not a merchant or a moneylender like the others but arrogant faced and richly clothed with a split lip, a woman dressed as a pilgrim though she wore fine gown and her robust stature was most assuredly not from poverty, and a young man with silver hair and gleaming blue eyes who smelled of low burning flame and blood.

    Who is she to these people? How come her to know such folk of high standing if she is a mere soldier of the Watch?

    Ostys poured wine but drank none and the others present did likewise. The talk was quiet, clipped and in a flurry of thorough High Valyrian that were heavily accented from the mouths the silver man and plump woman of which Zhatana was only able to catch a few fragments of conversation.

    “…they’ll dock at the East Wharf… under the seal of the Blood Celgyr... no one suspects the old man’s allegiances should waver, not when he is high in trust and repute in the Anogeion.”

    “…and you would believe we have not been found out yet?”

    “…then it is a good thing that the Rünaerys whelp acted in the manner we predicted. Now the Agraen family swears blood feud against them. We must make good use of this chance and have the Archon and his drakes be reminded of their uneasy grip of their deceit-won seats…”

    Everything else in between devolved into a monotony of voices drenched in a tongue Zhatana could hardly follow anymore. The names being called caused her head to ache in confusion but from the little sense she could make of it, this group had something against someone called the Archon and his followers and were planning something against them.

    Zhatana’s attention perked up again when she heard, “And the rat you trailed along with you? What do you plan to do with her?”

    “You presume much to bring her here, Ātsio.”

    Ostys said nothing in reply to that last remark, but her shoulder tensed – felt it even from inches away. Then the silver-haired man leaned forward, his eyes narrowing to a danger Zhatana would not have thought of one with his certain softness. “If your loyalty wavers…”

    And Ostys, calm as dawn, replied, “Then I would bear my chest for Egros to take my heart.” The table grew still as much as any one of you have a lot of stake in our purpose. Do not mistake me now.”

    But then Zhatana heard more spoken from Ostys even when she didn’t understand due to the watchwoman’s sudden switch to her compatriots’ benign language. But she caught the eerie shine that was sudden to glint in the watchwoman’s eyes when she met Zhatana’s gaze as she spoke. It made Zhatana far more uneasy than anything else that the others may have intoned despite the soft smile that Ostys awarded her.

    “The Archon does seem to be wavering under the relentless petitions from the common freeholders; they who have the guilds to their balls.”

    “That is little to no matter to us. Belaerys has his drakes driven to settle the uproar and any scent of recounted suit from them would be burned to their roots. And Vohgyreon is efficient in his ruthless purgings. We must stay a hand, friends, lest we be found out by that one.”

    “I dislike the thought of him recuperating so fast after what measures we have ensured. It took us quite a while to have our seeds in the right ground, amongst the common freeholders take root much more of bear fruit.”

    The silver man chortled, bringing a cup to his mouth but Zhatana did not see any movement of him drinking. “You didn’t think that the Archon or those around him; Vohgyreon, Aegnnis, Mondaryen, or even Zhoryae Rünaerys would find that a hassle to deter? You should know better yet, Stone. Nevertheless the work has done what it was supposed to do and nothing more.”

    “They would not see the end of it just yet. Like as that may seem to some of you and Belaerys, it is what we anticipated. It will give them what false safety there is in their small victories.”

    “It is all to be expected, yes. Layers and heels to this never ending dance to which our masters have scripted this many-faceted tunes. We each have a step to perform to the dance. We must keep to each one of lanes.”

    Ostys sniffed, clearly rankled with impatience. “Have faith, you say.” She directed at the woman who had spoke earlier. “Bide time, you advice,” to the man with the split lip. “But you know what I say?”

    The tall woman with the inked hands sighed. “Yes, yes, we all know what you believe, Ātsio. I still think your contribute is hasty and unpolished; dangerously bold as it is. But who am I to countenance it when approval has already been made and the plan moved ahead. We shall see how well you have  consignment in hand.”

    Eventually, they spoke of routes and banners and something called the Tallyman’s Code. The words still also meant nothing to Zhatana, but her breath quickened, and she felt suddenly very small beside Ostys’ sharp edges.

    One by one, the room emptied, each guest exiting without preamble or explanation and those left behind felt no insult or discourtesy at their abrupt departure and whether they did harbor some, Zhatana could not tell. When they rose to leave, the silver haired man sidled up to them, his bright eyes cutting a glance to Zhatana.

    His voice was low, lilting, almost sweet. “Have you lost your wits, Ātsio? Or has loyalty fled you?” The man smirked. “For true, you never hold authority for any of the dregs you rescue from the gutters of this here fair city.” Zhatana now got the full view of his attention. “Tell me girl, or would you rather remain unnamed right after you have seen and heard all of this?”

    He is cautious of my presence and closeness with Ostys. But he shouldn't be.

    I may have heard much but I understood little and less. Zhatana looked to Ostys for any sign that she should adhere to or against granting the man what he asked. But the watchwoman had her gaze up ahead as they ventured out of the secret room.

    Mineya the watchwoman stiffened beside Zhatana, her annoyance just as much palpable as her perfectly curated composure in spite of it. “She is under my protection. She companies with me, only for the day, nothing more. No threat.”

    The beautiful man laughed, though no warmth touched her lips. “No threat? Every mouth is a threat, every ear a danger. Have you forgotten what it is we are about? And the tantamountcy that it remains unfiltered by any and every one not without the signage of every one of us? Would you parade our cause before every helpless little vermin who warrants herself a bruise or cut in the streets?”

    The others, the few that remained within earshot of the scene shifted uneasily, some muttering, some silent. Zhatana wished then to vanish into the stone, for her gaze had fallen fully on her now. It was like staring into a flame that promised not warmth but burning. But most especially how had the man known that Ostys had found her bleeding out in the streets. Or had the woman informed these companions of hers of the situation... no, the matter of Zhatana accompanying her to this gathering had obviously caused Ostys dilemmas.

    “What was I to do then, seeing one such as her in such a state? She could have been died just as a passerby crossed an inch by her and offered no aid. I know why we do what we do, Doru, and you know as well as I and any of the others that I am justified in this.”

    “Guard your heart and your tongue, girl. For neither will serve you, most importantly us, well in our endeavors should you continue to abase yourself.” Was the silver man’s response in a low scalding tone that Zhatana saw even Ostys take caution to and bend her head in quiet submission. Zhatana would never have thought it of the fearsome and capable woman.

    “Doru, I beg fourteen pardons for the insult it may have caused to you–”

    “The insult is already given, but it can be overlooked. But speak to me in that tone again, by Shrykos, I shall have you crucified in the plaza.” He interjected elegantly, eyes glinting with a dark shine. There was something strange and seething to his beauty that made Zhatana not bear to look him directly in the face and to want to at the same time.

    “Do you know what I do to spies, child?” the silver man asked, stepping closer to Zhatana now without a mere glance at the subdued Ostys.

    The trickling sunlight painted the mask upon his face in gold and red, making him seem more god than man, terrible and impossible. His eyes through the mask showed a shade of reddish blue, not like the purples and indigo which Zhatana had seen was a common trait to the people of the city, except his gleamed with some unnaturalness that she could not fathom.

    His stride was slow, deliberate, like a serpent upon cornered prey. Dressed as he was in a most simple attire of robes layered over a simpler - more homespun - tunic, he wore too well. The mask perfectly concealed everything about him, leaving no room for discernment but when he reached to grip Zhatana's chin in a hard and very warm touch, she saw the shriveled fingers on his right hand. It was blackened as if burned but not, bony and gnarled to a shriveled thing unlike the rest of him.

    “I peel them open. Bone from flesh, secret from lie. Even the pretty ones; their blood fuels the fires in my manse and their bones are piled for nests.”

    Zhatana could not speak. Her mouth had dried to ash, her knees quivering and she found herself bending over as if on instinct to the casual advance of the man's presence. Her muscles tightened in fear but remained pliable by some unknown means to keep that position of a cowed rodent in face of a mighty creature.

    “But the same courtesy would be done to you. No, not you. Such a fate would be given to your protector here,” he waved behind him at Ostys. She saw the watchwoman completely twisted down by her spine into a bow. A non complacent one seeing as Ostys' hands clenched in fists. “You are not fit to grace the grounds of such places. I would simply unmake you right there and then.”

    His words were silk, but his eyes promised blood. And in that moment, Zhatana feared him more than she had ever feared the demons and beasts of her homeland, for she was not shadow and poison but something immolating, harsher.

    “The least you could afford, Ātsio, for bringing this creature to our gathering is to keep the thing outside of our notice.” The silver haired man sneered with a look of disgust piercing through his violet eyes.

    Zhatana shivered down her spine and found her feet cowering behind the frame of Ostys, wondering why she had brought her here and why it could not have been any other who brought offense to her presence so peculiarly sinister. There was a dark danger to this man certainly and it would not do to cross him in any way.

    After that Ostys grabbed her by the arm and all but fled from the building. Ostys didn’t stop, nor did slow down to catch her breath as Zhatana much needed to. The watchwoman did not speak the entire way of their hurried departure though Zhatana saw that anger flare in her eyes though the hand that held her by the arm trembled.

    Zhatana decided she did not like seeing Ostys like this. Frightened, angry at her weakness and unsure. The woman had saved her life, protected and hid her away to heal in the meantime. A total stranger had cared for her, the first since Zhatana had come in the wake of severe tragedy. Ostys did not deserve to be ridiculed and shamed, threatened with horrific shades of punishment by some man. He was a bully and a devil both; heartless and cruel and Ostys had endured him for her sake.

    Back in the streets, the wind had shifted. A storm was coming, distant but felt in the bones from the stark grey clouds moving in from the south over the once golden bright afternoon in the City of Pleasures. Zhatana said nothing on the way, but her head filled with thoughts aplenty. She watched Ostys’ back, her long stride, the way her hand hovered near her blade even while carrying a sack of bought items.

    At last, on the rise above the cliffs, with the sun bleeding out into the sea, Ostys stopped. “You heard more than you should,” she said, not turning.

    Zhatana hesitated. “You lied to me.”

    The woman’s voice softened, though it was no apology. “I never promised you the truth, Zhatana. Just safety.”

    “I heard much, yes. But I understood nothing of anything they said there so you should not be worried that I may be a spy. You will not die for helping me.” Zhatana replied with a downcast face.

    She heard a sound from Ostys and looked to see the woman smiling, an amused chortling sound reeling from her. “I am glad you care so much of what happens to me. Come I will use the last of the coin to get some sweets for you, since you have finally warmed up to me.”

    That lifted something in her chest. The streets were alive, colorful strings twirled and decorating from post to post, casting pools of gold upon cobbles slick with evening dew. From open tavern doors spilled laughter, fiddles, and the clatter of cups. Men staggered out with flushed cheeks, and girls in ribbons darted past, shrieking with delight.

    Zhatana slowed, caught by it all. Garlanded wreaths of fresh-cut flowers hung from the eaves, painted masks dangled from stalls, and bright pennants fluttered overhead. At a corner, a troupe of mummers rehearsed their jests, tumbling in the torchlight to the cheer of a gathered crowd.

    The streets were no longer the narrow, gray alleys Zhatana had known from the day, but a river of light and sound. Lanterns bobbed in every color she had never named, spilling their glow on banners painted with dragons that curled and twisted in endless knots. The air was heavy with scents – meat spitted over crackling fires, sugared nuts tossed in pans, sharp herbs crushed underfoot.

   “What is all this?” Zhatana asked, tugging at Ostys’ sleeve, stepping out of the path of dockworkers moving carts of wears and goods along with them.

    Ostys glanced about, grim still, though her eyes softened at the sight of the lanterns. Their dresses and gowns, half tunics and robes, were styled with the heat of the peninsula heavy on the mind. Airy, light cut from brightly colored fabrics of purples and blues, reds and golds – like the many shifting tones of dancing flame. They were mostly without the sleeves that the highborn from the Sunset Kingdoms favored, low cuts in the neckline that bared the torso of pale and olive skinned ladies to their navels and cinched to the waists in beads of peals, opals or amethyst seeds to pool the attention to their figure. 

    “Arlie Jēdarī – festival of the new year.” she said, her voice low enough to be lost beneath the roar of merriment. “The turning of the year. A night for beginnings… and for leaving regrets behind.”

    The men preferred simpler styles, a half tunic that hung just over the knees was suitable for their homely wear with only the add-on of a colorful robes thrown over one shoulder and gathered on the opposite arm for distinguishing flair. They pressed deeper into the throng. Women wore wreaths of ivy and gold foil in their gilded and pale hair, and the common man painted their faces in spirals, and children ran past carrying masks shaped like beasts and gods.

    “It is a Valyrian fest; prayers must be said in flame, offerings in blood to Arrax Jentys, he that is supreme of the jaesi. To Loryxa who favors those who let go of what chains them to the past; to enter a new year unburdened is to begin afresh. And to Vaerylla, mother of the Freehold, for honor is due her on every occasion.”

    At a corner, Zhatana saw a great fire built higher than a dozen men, most silver haired and bright purple eyed, and one by one cast written scraps into the blaze – old debts, confessions, sorrows, all curling into ash. On a closer look she spied that they had cut strands of shiny silver hair to bind before throwing into the fire. Others cut blades into their palms and thrust a full hand into the blaze.

   Zhatana whispered, “They burn pieces of themselves?” What a frightening way to worship.

   “They burn their burdens,” Ostys corrected gently. She glanced down at Zhatana, and her mouth twitched in a shadow of a smile. “Even dragonlords need a god of regrets.”

    Above, the sky shuddered. Several heads tilted back just in time to see it – a shadow vast as a cloud passing across the moon. Then another, and another. Dragons. They wheeled overhead, their roars rolling through the night like drums of thunder. The crowd cheered each pass, lifting cups and torches to the heavens.

   Zhatana felt the sound in my chest, heavy and wild, like her very heart belonged to it. Yet she shrank closer to Ostys, half in fear.

    “They do not frequent every festival,” my watchwoman said, her eyes fixed on the heavens. “Most dragons and their lords will fly to the Shining City in honor of it. It is but one of the few times, all children of Valyria must return home. For the dragons crown the sky, as Loryxa crowns the new year. Do you see, Zhatana? It is the one time this city will have free reign of ourselves without the vigilance of the dragonlords burning down on us.”

   Zhatana wanted to ask why she spoke to her that way – like she meant something deeper, as if the words were not only about gods and dragons, but about Zhatana. But Ostys’ hand tightened on her own, guiding her past stalls where trinkets glittered and mummers in gold masks acted out battles from long ago. Everywhere there was joy, but Ostys’ steps were steady, her mouth set in a line.

    The streets were alive with the rhythm of the city. Merchants shouted over one another, selling wares of every kind; fresh fruit, bolts of fabric, trinkets and tools. The smell of roasting meat mingled with the sharp tang of the sea air at the docks. Zhatana kept close to Ostys, her eyes scanning every alley and shadow for danger. Her injury throbbed as if knowing where she had come.

    They walked in silence for a while before Ostys led her toward a quieter part of the city, where the sea stretched out beyond the docks. Ostys on the other hand, seemed at ease here, greeting people with nods or short exchanges. A few vendors recognized her and offered her food or conversation, but she never lingered just as before.

    “You’ve been here a long time,” Zhatana noted as they passed a bustling square after she had lingered back as Ostys talked with a dockmaster and then a ship’s captain.

    Ostys nodded. “Years. Longer than I meant to stay.” Zhatana studied her, wondering what kept her here. She seemed capable, strong – she could have left, started over somewhere else. Did it have anything to do with the clandestine gathering they had just attended? And then Zhatana rebuked herself. How had she become embroiled with the woman’s business? 

    Yet she could not stop from asking. “Why stay?”

    Ostys shrugged. “It became home.”

    Zhatana scoffed but said nothing to that. She could never see here as home. Ebonhead was home. The cushion of palm leaves on golden beaches was home. Her mother and grandmother teaching her the songs of the Islands was home. Her brothers wading through the waves and delving deep to catch her while she searched for shells and sea glass, was home. This could not be home for her. Not after it has cost her hers.

    “I think you owe me a story,” Ostys said. “And now is about the best time to hear you tell it.”

    Zhatana stiffened. “What?”

    The woman glanced at her. “You never did say how you ended up here.” She frowned, staring at the waves lapping at the shore. She didn’t talk about it. Ever. But something in Ostys’ steady gaze made it clear she wasn’t asking to pry – she was giving Zhatana a choice and a chance. And after what had transpired earlier, she was perhaps owed that.

    Zhatana inhaled slowly. “It was a merchant ship,” she began. “We were only meant to go as far as Qarth.”

    Ostys remained silent, letting her go on at her own pace. “My father was an envoy of our city. We were bound to port when a storm hit. It came so fast. The fleet was scattered and our ship... it broke apart like it was nothing.” Zhatana’s fingers curled slightly, remembering the chaos, the rain, the wind, the screams swallowed by the sea. “I woke up on a plank and washed up on the shore a day later.”

    She left out the part where she had called for her mother and father until her voice was gone.

    The watchwoman exhaled, watching her carefully. “You’ve been surviving ever since.” Zhatana nodded.

    Ostys was quiet for a long time before he spoke again. “You don’t speak the language well.”

    Zhatana tensed. That was not what she had been expecting from her tale of woe. She had tried to hide it, speaking only in short sentences, avoiding complicated words. “I understand enough. It was enough to keep me safe for the while.”

    “But not enough to keep for the long run. Even where I to find a ship going south to your Isles, who is to say that the crew do not turn a different route and sell you at another port. I could not follow you for my place and obligations bind me to the colonies.” Ostys pointed out. “You’ve survived, but you could do more than that.”

    She narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”

    “I’m saying,” the trustworthy watchwoman said, turning to face Zhatana fully, “I can teach you. Though it is a testament to you that you’ve managed to grasp something of the low dialect in just a few weeks of being here. You could also do with learning some of the high speech of the dragonlords.”

    Zhatana stared at her, unsure whether to scoff or take her seriously. “You want to teach me your language?”

    She nodded. “If you want to stay alive in this city, you’ll need to understand people better. And honestly, it would be used to me, you could be of use to me knowing the tongue. Unless of course you have decided to return to the alleys and gutters? Then I shall not keep you.”

    Zhatana crossed her arms. She did not like that the woman knew which way she would go. “And what do you get out of it?”

    Ostys chuckled. “I will be traveling soon, as if I am sure you’ve pieced together by my excursion to the docks.” She looked at Zhatana who nodded regardless that she had not heard what words Ostys had shared with the dockmaster. “I cannot leave you to yourself for I don’t know when I shall be returning or if I will be returning even. What I get is surety that you don’t fall into trouble that would have you dead since I will be with you.”

    Zhatana was taken aback at such expression of concern from her. “And learning to speak the language with some degree of nativity to your accent will have you less conspicuous amongst the cityfolk . Naught that that would help, you are conspicuous enough to the eye.”

    Zhatana studied her for a long moment, then, begrudgingly, muttered, “Alright.”

    “You will see more than this. In fact you will be better entertained at the capital. What with the Rōvēgrie Tymptir being held there.” Ostys said at last, when the crowd thinned near a shrine where candles flickered in the shape of a great wheel. “Oh what a splendid affair it will be; the finest sort to start the year to draw crowds from the Isle Cities and the colonies. The last Rōvēgrie Tymptir I attended was a marvel. I was in the escort of the second magister of Pentos and got to see the Zaldrīzes Vīlībāzma.”

    “So we are going to watch the games?” Zhatana asked. “Or does this have something else to do with it?” Her gaze flicked to the sky again. Another dragon tore past the stars, fire dripping from its jaws in a blaze that set the crowd breathless with awe and fear. 

    “You are smarter than you let on,” Ostys said, her voice almost drowned by the cheers, “but do not let it be more harm to you by letting it show too often.”

    They spent the rest of their time meandering through the streets and Ostys taking Zhatana in brief rudimentary lessons in low Valyrian, going over words and phrases Zhatana had heard about on the lips of traders, artisans and sailors but never understood. Ostys corrected her patiently, repeating things as many times as she needed without growing frustrated. It was strange.

    By sundown, they had made it back, sitting outside in the shade of the watchwoman’s small hideaway home. Zhatana chewed on a piece of candied fruit Ostys had bought in the market. It had a burning sweetness that was more of a surprise that these people here would have such a delicacy familiar of Zhatana’s homeland; the juice running down her fingers.

    “You learn quickly,” the watchwoman remarked.

    Zhatana smiled wholly. “My people have a thing for languages. By the time we are four years old we must know how to speak not just in our tribe talk but in five others belonging to neighboring isles and tribes.”

    Ostys studied her for a long moment before leaning back against the wall. “You know, you could make something of yourself here. If you wanted to.”

    Zhatana scoffed. “Doing what?”

    The woman shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But I do know you don’t belong in the gutters.” She fell silent, unsure how to respond to that. No one had ever spoken about her future like it was something that mattered.

~♤~

   The room was dark, though not wholly. A single slit of a window admitted the pale moonlight, and the sea’s breath carried with it the hiss and sigh of waves gnawing at the shores of Lys far ahead. It was far into the night but Zhatana shivered awake for some reason but when she saw a standing figure in the darkness by the light of the spectral moon, she remained so.

    The figure was undoubtedly Ostys standing with her hands hovering over something slim with a faceted sheen like glass.

    Her eyes could not fix upon the object well enough till Ostys moved slightly to the right. It stood tall and slender, wrought of obsidian that seemed to drink all light around it. A thing of beauty and strangeness, as if someone had shattered a piece of the midnight sky. Merely looking at it, chased what small nagging feeling to go back to sleep. All Zhatana wanted to do was look, look... look!

    Its surface was slick as oil, yet veined with faint threads of color that shifted when one looked too long: azure here, blue there, and sometimes a depthless crimson that put Zhatana’s in mind of spilled blood seeping into the cracks of stone.

   Her heart began beating like a drum as she watched Ostys reach for something on the table. She pricked her finger with a needle of bone and let the drops fall, more and more red against the lacquer glass. Each ripple that spread from the blood seemed to reach for the candle, as if the sea itself sought to kiss the stone.

    Zbatana saw Ostys’ lips moving soundlessly at first, forming the syllables of the two tongues that blended into one. Valyrian it was, yes, yet the second was another speech, heavier, harsh as iron dragged across slate. With each word her breath thickened, as if smoke filled Zhatana’s lungs.

    And then, the tall glass shard caught like a candle. Not with flame of orange or yellow, not with the soft blue of a hearth fire. Green it was, and black beneath, a twisting column of ghostly light that did not flicker but bent, as though listening. Shadows crawled on the walls, stretching and twisting until they seemed half-alive, clutching at the air like long-dead hands.

    Her eyes widening in the dark, Zhatana gasped but stifled the sound immediately with her hand over her mouth. This is magic!

    Just when she believed she had come to understand the woman called Mineya Ostys, another mystery surged up. She was no mere woman of the City Watch, or a member of some secret gathering  of dangerously committed people. She was also a sorceress. Zhatana had heard of such people, only as tales spread about her village. Of a distant city cloaked and born of the shadows where the natives could perform unnatural works with shadows and flame.

    Just as the traders coming in at Ebonhead would talk about the great beasts that flew and breathed flames, that Zhatana had now seen to be true. It looked like their other stories of shadowbinders and sorcery that could peer through vast distances was also truth. 

   The glass candle lit in a burning haze of visions. Hoary lights flashed and zipped, chasing shadows and creating some eerie dancing shapes of coalescing reddish blue tinge. Ostys’ silhouette stood in front of the shimmering crystal of the candle, frames in the lines and incandescence of the magic that was pungent in its invocation in a near lyrical tone again and again till the fiery halo revealed a face through its sheen.

    When the voice came, it was not with sound. Rather, it pressed against her thoughts like a cold blade, sliding into the marrow of her skull. Male, perhaps? Or female? It was hard to tell. The timbre shifted, soft one moment, serrated the next, as if the candle itself was undecided what shape the presence should wear.

    “Iksan naejot sagon va iā lōgor naejot se Vēzendio Dārȳti lēda se Ennaar Mopiris, va se hemtubis elēnar.  Yn se bardugon ēza issare ȳdragotan naejot gūrogon ñuha dīnagon.”

    The green light surged higher, wrapping the chamber in its glow. For a heartbeat Zhatana was not in the hovel any more, but standing upon a shore of black sand, the sky overhead red as fresh-spilled wine. A great shadow passed across the heavens and her skin prickled as though scorched. Zhatana blinked and the vision was gone but an ache pinched behind her eyes, an ache that kept on mounting higher till the pain was almost to near burning that Zhatana had to turn away entirely from the glare of the candle’s light.

    “Skorkydoso iksis ziry?” Even if she had turned away, Zhatana could still hear the voice hummed in quite the distinct accent, fluid and heavy in its intonations of some words as if the tongue he conversed was not his native one.

    “Lyka se tolī dāez lēda zȳhon mispāsagon hae se tubissa rēbagon.”

    “An appropriate response considering the state of things. So where are my kindly cousins expanding their influence to now?” the switch to the common tongue was unexpected yet Zhatana’s ever curious mind lapped at the convenience to hear more.

    Should Ostys prove even more nefarious, Zhatana would have no other option but to flee. She had to survive. So that she may go home.

    "Along the Rhoyne – Chroyane. An emissary of the Archon, nameless as he remains to be regardless of our efforts in finding out, will be returning in a fortnight and I surmise after a few days wold bring the matter before the council here.”

    “Then why this summons?”

    “My lord, the condition grows worse. The Anogeion becomes a circle within a circle within a circle. No one knows precisely who’s in the control of whom anymore. Nonetheless we now suspect your four cousins are behind an effort to force the dissolution of those freeholders without. We have acquired secret proofs to seize the chains of deeds by any means needed should legal measures fail.”

    “So the games begin in no sooner time than we are ready.”

    “The hands of this game, my lord, remain the same as it did when you still walked amongst your kin. But we have identified alliances and backing stretching farther than  we had earlier predicted.”

    “Whatever they are, we must make no compromises that may weaken our bonds within the priest-”

    "It is those bonds that make me very uneasy, my lord. Some in the Template are easily bought for aims outside ours, others wear their oaths far tighter than dragons wear their own scales and no one trusts the mage and the methods he practices in your name. What he wants is to strengthen his own position never mind ours.”

    “Withal, my fang, we need the hollow. At least until we do not. But we have done well with the guise of what we really want, masking what our true intentions are. But I sense that you are afraid,” it said. The voice was echoing, as if spoken in a cavern where stone remembered the words of every mouth that had ever called there. “Do not deny it. Fear keeps the mind awake. Fear makes the blood sharp.”

    Ostys did not flinch. “Fear keeps the blade true as well. But only a fool mistakes fear for loyalty.”

    A ripple passed through the flame. Was it laughter? Or contempt? Perhaps both.

    “Loyalty,” it said, dragging the syllables like a chain across stone. “To whom? The girl? You have always had a soft thing for strays, Mineya. It is a most endearing trait you have but also tenuous. Tell me, watchwoman, whose leash do you wear?”

    Ostys’s jaw tightened. “Yours, my lord. I serve the vow, and the vow alone.”

    "A vow that is a leash knotted in mine own hands," the figure replied, its face shifting again, cheekbones rising sharp then melting into softness. “You bind yourself and call it virtue. But chains of silk still bind and I am not a master to take disregard lightly.”

    The candle's fire flared higher, distorting in flashing cadence and in a myriad of a multitude of colors.

    “Why show me this?” Ostys demanded, though her voice cracked against her will.

    “Because it will come. The dance of blood is written, as it always was.” The figure’s eyes burned violet within the fire. “You keep the girl Zhatana close. You think her innocent. But innocence is clay, and clay waits for the hand that shapes it. Will you shape her? Or shall we?”

    “She is under my charge,” Ostys said tightly with a voice that still trembled. “And she will remain so.”

    “Charge becomes burden. Burden becomes sacrifice, Mineya.”

    Ostys’s fists clenched on her knees. “If you threaten her or seek to do her harm–”

    “Threaten? Harm? No, no. We offer. The girl may walk one of two paths; either one she will serve just as you have. Which would you choose for her, since you hold such an interest to her?"

    The question lanced through her. The flame writhed, sensing her hesitation.

    “Nēdenka. Doru-borto, yn nēdenka. Very well, keep your charge. But understand this: the dance cannot be stilled.” And with that, the flame recoiled, drawing back into itself.

Chapter Text

    Naherion had his own expectations for the day as well. It was as his usual routine by Syvaris’ new dawn, since he’d been attending to and overseeing the crucial tasks of the running of the functioning and goings-on within the sphere of the Vohgyreon family manse in the capital.

    As the Master of the Inner Palace, Naherion had days that were never one of idleness and little less of leisure. His charge was the ordering of the household of his lord master; from the servants within the various circles of service in the entirety of the palace to the attendants that served the other members of the blood Vohgyreon, and the slaves that boded to the very rhythm of their master.

    He liked to think that if his Lord Ragaer Vohgyreon was the hive of thought which turned the axles of his holdings in order, his marshals and all sworn lecegos were the spokes on it, then Naherion was likened to please himself in thinking he was the grease easily and regularly applied to keep it all turning smoothly, unseen but holding every part together by the command of his lord master.

    He began where he was most to be found; in the private east wing of the manse where the Vohgyreon family keep their quarters and to the lord’s chamber where Naherion would submit himself at his lord master’s knee. He used the servants tunnels that wormed throughout the ancient yet sturdy design of the residence.

    When he entered the grand chamber reserved for the head of the blood Vohgyreon, Naherion saw that his master had since already risen from his bed but his nephew was still snoring on cushions made for him on the smooth black floors.

    The boy had strewn himself on several plush cushions and pillows on the pristine floors. His slender, very pale form was covered with a sheet on his lower half. But Naherion could also see the boy’s mussed golden curls and the red bruises smattering on the slope of his neck and wrapped strings of cloth wrapped around his wrists bearing dots of dried blood

   He walked forward in regulated steps and nothing but a slight exasperation at his nephew, to wake the errant boy, already thinking of all the ways to reprimand him for still sleeping whilst his master had long been awake.

    “Let the boy sleep, Naherion. I kept him up all throughout the night. I have set aside some missives I wish sent out this morn. See to them, good Naherion.” Lord Ragaer spoke from where he was standing in the balcony of his chambers.

    The early morning breeze fluttered the fine satin of his sleeping robes, carrying with it the buffeting heat from the volcanoes and magma rivers. It was going to be a particularly hot day it seemed.

   “The morning sees you well, my lord.” Naherion gave his greeting in more of a form of prayer, bowing his head to draw his lingering gaze away from the dragonlord just as he turned to place his own upon Naherion.

   “Yes. Syvaris Jehikagrī gifts much this new day. We must see that some offerings must be placed in gratitude, although I am certain my mother will already have done so.” his lord master drawled over his shoulder before turning his head of full, back length brilliant golden hair free flowing in the warming breeze.

    Naherion watched him in the silence that ensued. There was always some sort of weight bearing down on his lord master for as long as he had served at his side. And the high balcony which expanded the view of the Shining City from this western vantage had always provided his lord master with a space for his private meditations, away from what new troubles the day might bring him to face.

    Even as boys, with Naherion being only a tower page at the time, Lord Ragaer had been the fourth youngest of eight sons of the previous lord master, born of Lady Haera. Having that many siblings, it had been entirely unforeseen that Ragaer would someday see himself as head of the Vohgyreon family but the culminating battles of the final Ghiscari War had seen the blood Vohgyreon whittled down to only a single son.

    However even back then his master, young as he had been then, had been often plagued by his own thoughts than he was to the outside world – sometimes even melancholic. Lord Ragaer had been close to his brothers and half-siblings, and the loss of most of them had for certain thrown him into a spiral of further gloom.

    Naherion had seen the worst of it when near every moon of yet another Vohgyreon had been given to the fires for their final journey down to Trumanopon to be judged beneath the halls of Balerion. And with every rising smoke and sailing ashes of a brother or sister, Lord Ragaer had succumbed farther into himself.

    Many amongst the clients and marshals beholden to the Vohgyreons had doubted if Ragaer Vohgyreon would be the most capable master for such a storied bloodline. There had even been a whisper of a cousin wresting the title and seat as soon as the old master had passed, if only to save the Vohgyreon name and honor from the hands of a melancholic recluse that Ragaer had started to become known as.

    Yet the family had thrived more in one generation under the helm of Lord Ragaer than it had in the last three. Naherion’s master had shown to wield veritable authority within the Anogeion, had breathed the flames of fortune back into the family’s coffers and dealings, and raised the siginia of the blood Vohgyreon to gain favor as one of the closest counsels to the Archon of the Freehold.

    It was an accomplishment that could make any dragonlord proud  Yet they were wont to want more as was their very nature.

    So Naherion wondered, taking the motionless silence to stare at Lord Ragaer, what else his lord master would be pondering about this early in the day. But a dragon’s mind, least of all his ambitions, were not things a lowman like Naherion could ever understand.

    “Mounting more offerings to the goddess shall do naught but bring more blessings upon your house, pōs āeksio.” Naherion whispered from the few paces he was permitted to stand behind his lord master and he saw Lord Ragaer nod at his words.

    Naherion heard his lord master mumble lowly a prayer before saying to him. “You may wake the boy after I have gone down to the baths. I shall want to dine with my family this morn before anything. And has the matter concerning the tutor for my sons been addressed?”

    Naherion lowered his head. “Yes, pōs āeksio. Master Dorraen gave agreement that the offer has been accepted and transport has been procured for the man to arrive soon.”

    His master gave an accenting grunt that could be described as weary but then it may not have anything to do with his health but his recent evidence of lack of sleep. “Very well. Anteros and Vaedar have gone long enough without proper instruction. The gods alone know what new mischief they would engage themselves in if they are not given back to their schooling soon.”

    At Lord Ragaer’s dismissal, Naherion returned back to the chambers to retrieve the couple of hand-sized obsidian slates and piles of carefully arranged and sealed letters from a separate room that opened a way in once Naherion had slotted in a bold faced coin through a hole in the wall.

    He spied the destinations to which the letters would have be sent to; Azantion, Heliand, Emyros. And a couple were sent to the guildhalls within the city however  none of them bore the persons that would be receiving them just as they always been. He took his drowsed nephew from the lord master’s rooms and cautioned him on what he should have done before the dawn came so as not to displease Lord Ragaer and find himself out of his favor. The boy only had mumbling of discomfort and his desire to rest some more, to give to him.

    Naherion, after leaving Tacaen to his preparations and with another scolding threat to send him back to his mother, went on to deposit the missives he had been entrusted to the office of Master Dorraen who would see them all delivered to their rightful destinations. 

    As always, even at such early a rising as the hour was still, he found the treasury prefect for Lord Ragaer at his desk half in task and half in exchange of words with the other occupants of den.

    Naherion spotted a bevy of Vohgyreon officers come to Aemarr Dornalys who was a man better described by Naherion as a slimy-fingered git for the way he fabricated ways to slip his hands into everyone’s coin purse especially those belonging to his master. Yet Lord Ragaer left him to his office because the man was also gifted in acquiring in profitable enterprises which was perhaps a reason the Vohgyreon fortunes had flourished in the last decade.

    The men exited the room as soon as they had been attended to and as they passed Naherion heard their mumbled side remarks made to the insult of the treasury prefect.

    “It bodes ill for you that you should part a soldier with his wages, Master Aemarr.” Naherion said as he stood by absent desk of the juror he had intended to come see instead.

    He looked down at his feet and was gladdened to see that the marble floor was freshly washed, the scent of crushed myrtle rising with the mist drifting in from the windows. The last time, the detectable juror had lots to complain about the neglect given to his office.

    “I perform the work of our lord master. If they find fault with it, then they may dare to bring it up with him.”

    Naherion doubted those men would but they were sure to speak with their lecegos who in turn was at liberty to meet in counsel with Lord Ragaer by the end of the week. On the long cedar table lay neat scrolls, tablets, and a half-spilled pouch of coins. Aemarr Dornalys was bent over his figures, lips pursed as if numbers themselves offended him.

    Opposite from where he was, Naherion stood and began to broach the subject which he had desired to have seen conclude as soon as he had laid eyes on the man. “We must need talk about the first feast of the coming Rōvēgrie Tymptir. Our honorable mistress would have everything in the matter of its planning done with utmost perfection.”

    “And by perfection, she would mean to outdo whoever of her kith hosted the last first feast.” the man mumbled with squinted eyes. “Yes, yes. I was wondering when to expect you. Though I beg to hazard that I was not the purpose of your presence in the initial stance,” Master Aemarr retorted sharply. “Well you may come again with that, I am too busy to attend to your afterthoughts.”

    Naherion said with weighted implication. “Then I shall gladly relay those words in exact to the lady so that you may have this morning calm for your balance sheets, Master Aemarr.” that made the man finally look up to meet Naherion’s amusement.

    Now he looks. Fool. Besides the man being too good at his work and earning ire from any who had to stand before is counting table and bare their pockets to his scrutiny, Naherion gave Aemarr Dornalys his dislike for the way hehad since treated Naherion since he had served the blood Vohgyreon.

    The man was no dragonblood, not even by going a further score generations back in his family line, yet Aemarr Dornalys put on airs as if he had been born to one. Hence the way he spoke of the Lady Alystrea as if he were her better.

    Naherion was well aware of the half feeling which some in the household and patronage of the blood Vohgyreon, had towards the wife of their lord master; harboring continuous misgivings that Lord Ragaer should have wed his last remaining cousin than from another lineage - foreign as they were. However Lady Alystrea of the distinguished Aginarys family, dragonblood stretching unbroken for centuries and riders of dragons.

    They may have been posted as governors of Lys for the past three generations with the lady herself being born there but it did not make her any less blood of the dragon. This, Lady Alystrea had proven; giving the Vohgyreon blood two heirs and daughters for both to ensure the purity of their storied legacy.

    “The mistress wishes for abundance,” Naherion said, taking out a scroll he had earlier tucked into his sleeves. “Five whole kempa nofel, fifty amphorae of Aelionian wine, garlands for every guest. I’ve spoken to the market steward, he’ll keep the finest cuts aside if we send word by sundown.”

    Master Aemarr looked suddenly ashen as the master of the Inner Palace went on in a litany of the extravagant needs and decadence for the feasts. “Five kempa nofel?” His tone was measured, cold as a coin fresh from mint. “Perhaps our mistress also wishes to feed half the Anogeion. Remind me, Naherion, are we celebrating the new year or bankrupting the household?”

    Naherion’s lips curved slightly. “It’s the season of splendour and generosity also. Or so the voktys would have us believe. But then, voktys eat at their altars, while coin counters dine on papyrus.”

    “Better papyrus than whatever scraps fall from those tables when the servants have done ‘organizing’ the feast.” Master Aemarr replied thinly, his hand moving across to underline a figure with the stylus. “If I recall, last year’s accounts listed thirty amphorae of wine from Lyria, now she asks for the new vint from Aelion? Curious, that.”

    Naherion’s voice was calm, though his hand tightened around the scroll. “A progression of tastes from the high and mighty, perhaps. It is not a new thing to find their palate change as the seasons do. Or perhaps it was a miscount in your tablets. Numbers are tricky things, they say whatever the writer wishes.”

    “Unlike wine,” Master Aemarr said, “which tends to vanish whether one wishes it or not.”

    A tense stillness lingered until Naherion spoke again, all sweetness. “Then let us trust your infallible numbers, good prefect. Tell me how much generosity the gods can afford this year.”

    Master Aemarr lifted his tablet at last, handing the slate square to Naherion who accepted it hesitantly unsure why the man was going against his usual disposition of keeping his accounts to himself. “Enough to sate Balvion and Xheqaros both. Not enough to let servants imagine themselves hosts.”

    Naherion looked at the tallying alongside the listed requests for the First Feast and looking at the costs which Master Aemarr had ascribed to each, Naherion could not fault the prefect for his remarks. Naherion bowed with impeccable grace, the movement so smooth it verged on insult.

    “The amount is outrageous but it is what has been requested and it is what shall be acquired with no remission. Let it not be said that the Vohgyreons are stringent on their purse strings for just some flowers.”

    The treasury prefect tapped his stylus against the wood corners of his desk once more. “Then I shall dispense the funds as soon as you are able to return after noon, Master Naherion.”

    They shared a smile that never touched their eyes as at last Master Dorraen entered. Naherion turned away from the prefect and went to his master’s clerk, greeting the more amiable notary whom Naherion had better rapport with than the other before delivering the letters and missives he had been asked to.

    Soon after he left to go down to the kitchens and ensure that the preparation of the morning meal for the family was going smoothly and quickly as if Lord Ragaer was awake, then his mother had surely been up even hours earlier. And he did not have it in him to endure any of the old woman’s bite today.

    In the kitchens, where the cook, Fera, was already bellowing at a frightened girl who had let the oatcakes burn, her robes of grey silk darkened with kitchen smoke. The air shimmered with heat. Copper braziers hissed as steam rose from the cauldrons, the scent of spiced eel and roasted firefruit mingling with the sting of brimstone. Scaled drakes the size of hounds slithered between the servants’ feet, snapping at fallen scraps.

   Kalthor, the head dragon-keeper’s second, who had now made it a habit to leave his posts and come through to the main section of the manse and waste his hours aside, leaned against a basalt pillar, arms folded, a smirk playing beneath his silver-streaked hair. At the side hearth, the young cupbearer, was polishing chalices of obsidian glass, listening more than he spoke.

    “Mind the firefruit! If the old dragonness finds it burnt again, she’ll have your tongues salted and fed to her hatchlings. I’ll not have ash on the table of lords!” she cried, settling in a slew of mumbled curses.

    The dragonkeeper scoffed, biting into a finger food he had grabbed from one of the several passing trays. “She wouldn’t waste such seasoning on them. The old Lady prefers her punishments a little more hammy, not practical.”

    The advancing figure of the steward, Maerran, stepped into the warmth and smoke. “Peace, Fera. The girl is young. Take her hand, show her the trick of the pan. Better to lose a dozen cakes in the learning than a servant in tears.”

    The cook scowled, but she obeyed, guiding the girl with a gentler tone. Naherion checked the stores himself, eyes flicking over sacks of barley, casks of fresh pressed and sufficiently spiced juices, and a haunch of salted venison. “The entire family will break bread with Lord Ragaer this morn, I hear” he said. “Lay the board with pork, not capon. And have the terrace to the west gardens laid out and set for them all.”

   “It isn’t everyday the lord master chooses to share his table with his wife and children. He has been too busy to deign them his presence on even some suppers even.”

   “The voktys of Onixa say the fires speak to those with truest veins. The lord master bleeds of Valyria’s flame, the lady of newer silver. The children are halves of each.”

    “That is just baseless talk expected from one such as you who know little of the Freehold and the dragonbloods who reign from her heart. The dragonlords would never look outside their own kin for a bride. The lord master may have lost many brothers and pure cousins but he was fetched a bride of equal purity in blood as his own. The Lady only was born in the colonies, her father governs there in the name of the Anogeion, as her grandfather before him. She mounts her own dragon, take that should be a good sign as any that she is of the Old Forty.”

    “One can easily tell where your loyalties lie, little mouse.” the cook narrowed her eyes to the slave boy.

    “She is mistress of the manse,” he stated for a fact. “She thanks me when I serve her wine.”

    Kalthor laughed then. “And that’s the measure of your loyalty? A word of thanks for every pour of her wine?” More cackles of laughter erupted and spread amongst the servants in the kitchens.

    Naherion had heard enough of this idle talk. “Enough of this talk. The lord’s morning meal shall not serve itself and you shall make him tarry not. You, boy, be quick with those cups! Kalthor, make yourself useful and ensure the drakes have seen to their daily flights but bring them to their pens by high noon. I’ll not have them above clouds when the lord master seeks to inspect them for the coming celebration.”

    The dragonkeeper bowed with an easy motion, even as his dark indigo eyes mocked with a glint. “As my lord commands. May your fires burn as long as the Freehold.”

    “Careful, now. Speak of gods in a house that boasts itself divine, and someone may mistake your breath for blasphemy.” the slaves scattered then at his sudden appearance and the servants moved with faster feet. But his attention was given solely to Kalthor.

    “You talk too freely for a servant who should have long been on his way to tending his charges or must I again tell you of what bodes for caretakers who do naught of caring of such veritable chattel?”

    Kalthor bore a tick in his clenched jaw but shook his head regardless before disappearing from the kitchens. Naherion still caught the movement of his lips in the shadows as he departed but he could do naught for it nor did he care for what measly words a dragonkeeper for him in spite.

    “Gratitude for expelling talkative hindrances, Naherion.” Fera said. 

    “I’ll take these for payment.” He winked at her when he seized a firefruit from a platter that was passing quickly in the hands on a cowering slave.

    The fruit was as large as his clenched fist and a bright shade of orange near luminous golden red which was a secondary attribute that had given it its name.

    The first was its juice that was as succulent as it was scalding to the tongue or so was reported by those accorded the right to taste of it. Grown in the ash fields of Targion where the simmering fire rivers of Heliand banked and flourished hundreds of leagues of the Lands of the Long Summer where the blood Vohgyreon owned an extensive manse from whose orchards the firefruit had been harvested from. 

    From there Naherion walked the outer halls, stopping to speak with stewards, pages, and chambermaids. A mural hung askew in the west gallery; he noted it and ordered a slave to have it properly cleaned.

    Dust must not be allowed to gather in the living steads of his master. The armory corridor neared where two slave girls with brooms set to work before the words left his lips. He knew the names of every attendant and slave in the manse and most of their children besides, and he carried their loyalties in quiet ways – a kind word, a watchful glance, an ear bent to hear a grievance.

    By the time the sun stood well in the boughs of the goddess Syvaris' arms, the mansehold was humming, each part set to its task like pieces on a war map. Naherion himself was summoned back to Lord Ragaer’s solar.

    The chamber was well brightened. Lord Ragaer sat at his table, his callused fingers heavy with rings, his face was washed from dreary sleep and stern beneath a tonsure of lustrous silver-white hair. Burning scent sticks had been aired into his clothing before he had been adorned in their folds of cerulean and black.

    “Naherion,” the lord said without looking up, rings glinted at two fingers.

    He bowed his head, hands clasped at his back. “My lord, your morning meal awaits on the west terrace. The family gathers.”

    Lord Ragaer hummed in assent.

    It had been a normal morning, blessed by Syvaris with cloudless skies over the heads of the entire capital city. A light dew rain had sprinkled earlier to cool the stifling heat that constantly held Valyria in a cradle of its magma rivers, for a time. A normal meal, of meatbread lathered in honey spices, fresh fruits and cheese, was served to the family. 

    The Lord Ragaer had joined his wife, sons and mother midway and had informed his sons of what was expected of them today. Even if they were to feign forgetfulness, the young masters had been gentled in the week of their restriction from their mounts.

    “Your new tutor arrives today. Galiar Gonaellis, he took your father and his brothers in their education and had no nonsense for laziness and misbehavior both.”

    The young master Anteros, eldest of the lord master's children, was the first show any reaction to the news from his grandmother. The boy grimaced. “Another tutor, father? The last one fled before a fortnight was out, swearing we’d sought to halve his life. As if he had anymore years left in him to spare.”

    Naherion saw the younger son, Vaedar, grin as he divulged. “That was because you put wyrms into his sleeves while he slept!”

    Anteros countered with a huff. “He deserved it. He slept too often. And let’s not forget you always had every word he said corrected, much more had to overexpose his baseless theories on metallurgy.”

    “Aha! You admit then that it was all baseless then.” Vaedar jeered, and Naherion bit the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling at the boy’s cheek. His lord’s younger son was usually so morose and reserved - just as his father was - of himself but somehow managed to possess humor and smiles when coaxed by his older brother.

   Their mother lifted her cup, arching a silvered brow, “You both deserve the switch for either and less. Three tutors now we have hired and had to receive their abrupt demand of leave. Your father had half a mind to dispose you off onto the Aegium and I do inclined to agree. Jaesi knows we wouldn’t be the first to send sons a few years too early.”

    The boys shifted uneasily in their seats, looking to the best of their act, chastised. “But this tutor, I hear, is said to be of sterner mettle. If your grandmother speaks true, he will brook no wyrm, insubordination nor any other mischief.”

    Lord Ragaer brought his own to the talk. “His hand was quick with the sting of his backhand, true, but his scholarship is impressive enough to warrant an infamy of its own. You do not want to impede your own future by failing the man’s expectations. You’ll learn, if you value your hides and the siginia of your blood.”

    If the man whom his lord master had acquired to replace the dullard, Irraenor, had been his tutor then Naherion knew the words of his lord master was true. He himself could recall Galiar Gonaellis from several decades ago when the aged – even back then – philosopher had taken the education of Lord Ragaer and his brothers, in his wrinkled but stern hands.

    Galiar Gonaellis was sharp as dragonsteel with his intellect, which was measured equally in his deserved fame for it. A celebrated Strategos with a lifetime of accolades from high circles, author of vaunted scriptures in politics, logic, and invention. But worse, for the Vohgyreon boys at least, was how far the name of Galiar Gonaellis and all those attached to it, carried into the larger and higher echelons of Valyrian society. A genius he was, if the dragonblood did not try to covet every and all extraordinary feats as their own.

    After over three-score years of nonpareil service in the Aegium, Galiar Gonaellis’ word of approval or disregard had ensured many an entry cadet to remain a tirones for more years than they’d been alive or worse they had been refused entry into the Aegium at all. It was rare for a man not of the dragonblood families to afford such a pull in the ranks of his betters but Galiar Gonaellis had proved he was an exception in generations. No worthy blood of the dragon could afford such a disgrace of a future set for them.

    Anteros, though hesitant, learned torward his father, “Father… if Vaedar and I should swear by Urrax, upon Vohgyreon tableaus, to behave and give no cause for mischief, would you not permit us to rejoin our dragons? At least for a week’s good conduct?”

    The request brought chortles of amusement about the adorned stone table from the adults much to the boys’ solemn looks. Their father spearing a sausage. “A bargain already? You’ve yet to meet the man and you bargain for a return to your mounts. No, boy. A week of good conduct would earn you praise and some leisure, but not reprieve to have your dragons back. A teacher must rule his hall as firmly as I rule mine.”

    That was a hard punishment to visit upon young dragonriders, Naherion had to be sure. His ancestors had not been of the pristine privilege to grant Naherion that blessed favor of the Fourteen to be a rider of their children. And so Naherion would never deem to understand the bond between rider and dragon. But hr had been born in the shadow of dragonkin and served his lord master since he was as old as his eldest son; he had seen often how his lord master’s father had withheld access to the family Hold from his errant sons to teach them discipline and honor.

    Seeing the disgruntled and nigh agonizing grimace on the sullen faces of the young masters, Naherion knew his lord had chosen the right way to correct his sons’ brazen actions against the Template.

    “Perhaps we should hire a voktys instead of a tutor, if all we wish for is discipline in these reckless drakes.” Lady Alystrea said lightly much to the visage annoyance of her sons at their being named after the most troublesome stage in a dragon’s lifespan.

    Lord Ragaer wore a wry smile. It lifted some good feeling in Naherion to see his lord master enjoying to converse with his close kin. “A voktys would have run sooner and faster than the last tutor. No, Galiar Gonaellis is the one suited for this. Besides if they are in need of sacred teachings of the jaesi then my mother has them assuredly in hand.”

    “Will he make us copy scriptures all day? My glyphhand is good as it shall ever be and need no more improvements. Or chant lyrics sagas till our tongues dry, for mine nearly did the last time.” Vaedar pouted.

    Master Anteros groaned, handing off the piece of pastry in his hand. “I don’t think I would want a tongue if that is what he’s going to be teaching us.”

    Lady Haera scolded and curdled her grandsons with that burning flash of her stern amethyst gaze. “He will teach you more than much of those scripts and treatises which are in all well needed annals of our Freehol, or whatever else which are in all well needed annals of our Freehold, you have filling your mouth with impudence. Listen, and you may discover some worth beyond what you read.”

   “Valzȳrys, I received a messenger stone from Eramaera of the blood Belaerys, acknowledging acceptance to join the list of guests we are to host on the first feast of the games. Lest you forget in your dealing of various affairs of the day.” Lady Alystrea changed the subject with a soft yet deft manner.

    “My thanks for the reminder, wife. As if I do not have enough to manage, I’d have to deal with the Archon and his peacocking Primarchs both on the same night. That’s without saying their wives in company too.” Naherion’s lord master let out an aggravating sigh that amused him enough to twitch a little at his mouth but kept his composure to the back.

   “What affairs do we have today, Naherion?” his lord gave a slight tilt to the side without nary a glance to the few paces back where his manservant and master of the Inner Palace stood. “I will see them all done with before that krakrawyrm of man sets my moods afire to do nothing but wish to suckle his brain upon a spike.”

    Naherion bowed and spoke. “To start, Master Dorraen wishes to speak to you on an urgent matter, he says.” Naherion twisted his mouth even at uttering it. He had always required any within the household to supply good enough reasons for an audience with the lord master so as not to waste nonsense on the limited hours of Lord Ragaer. Yet Master Dorraen had given none to his.

    “Accounts from the lease mines and quarries for the year’s end have arrived from your overseers; as well as the wages for the marshals. Meetings with the lecegē and a Template cadre for the upcoming festivals–”

    “I can deal with the Template.” Lady Haera interjected. “They are better met by one of their own; no doubt they would enact some trickery to have some unnecessary tribute leave with them before the first fires are lit. Perhaps, my son, you would have your wife attend alongside me?”

   Naherion blinked, sharing a quick uncertain glance with his lord master who then turned to Lady Alystrea who had perked up at the suggestion.

    “Mother,” but the old woman waved whatever words that Lord Ragaer had started to say but heaved a sigh and acquiesced. “Very well.”

    Naherion waited for a few more breaths to permit any other at the table to break the silence lest he attaint himself by doing so too early or to interrupt a member of the dragonblood.

    “A delegation from the low freeholders have petitioned to see you in congress on the matter of the opening games of the festivities soon to come. A group of foreign client-magisters will be waiting as well, a rather large group, merely to pay their well wishes on the births of your daughters-”

    “They wish to be on your good side, no doubt. In the hopes that you might foster favorably to an idea of a future suit for one of them.” The lady’s tone was as black as a krakrawyrm’s venom.

    “What? But our sisters are only babes!” Anteros remarked.

   “And they shan’t be wasted on the likes of them; our sisters are for us. Aren’t they, father?” all that Lord Ragaer did in form of a response was a rumble of his throat as he drank from his cup.

    “You will have to see the envoy from the low freeholders today?” Lady Haera said. “He lingers long these past days, and I fear the delay will be taken for insult.”

    His lord master nodded. “That was only half the intent. The low freeholders need must find their humility in all their daring to think to match us in anyway. Otherwise they shall face the flames for their little displays of insolence of late.” And the lord motioned with a familiar gesture that had Naherion leaving his position behind his lord master, at the edge of the terrace where the family ate.

    The meal stretched on, the sun climbing higher in the morning sky, the family savoring the rare moment when the Lord Ragaer had no immediate summons to the Anogeion or his other affairs. Slaves drifted in and out, laying oven-hot pastries, pouring freshly pressed juices and leaving with plates.

    A slave youth, pretty in his base Ghsicari coloring, bearing a Vohgyreon torque about his copper brown neck, soon came in with neither plate nor carafe and bowed hastily before the gathered family but turned more to Lord Ragaer, head downcast as he relayed. 

   “Forgive this one, lord master, but Master Galiar Gonaellis has arrived.”

    Lord Ragaer leaned back, satisfied after finishing what he can from the breakfast table. A slave girl neared to dust the crumbs from the lord’s sleeves and another approached with a silver basin of clear water. “Good. See him brought here. I would have him weigh my sons at table before my eyes rather than wait for the results of their learnings.”

    “My lord son seems to want to demean his old teacher. Hearken well to him, boys. This should be entertaining for me as it would be instructive for you.”

    “Yes but you may only inflict this experience when you are well and truly saturated from learning from him.” Their mother added.

    Naherion offered the gold plaque for his lord master to retrieve the rings he had kept aside before breaking his fast. Through the ajar doors that led to the terrace chamber stepped a tall, spare man in an austere blue robe belted plain at the waist. 

    His face was angular, cheekbones high as any trueblood Valyrian, his hair gone to complete baldness but boasted a beard – an impervious white thing on his face reaching to his belt though he walked with the poise of a man unbent by his many years. His eyes had always been the striking part: one was a pale, cold violet and the other startling silver grey but both took the measure of all present in a single sweep.

    “My lord Vohgyreon,” the philosopher bowed smoothly without a shuffle of his sandaled feet. “The Fourteen avail you and your kin on this day.”

    “And yet,” Lord Ragaer  replied coolly, “your voice scrapes my ear exactly as it did when I was a boy forced to recite Azantys hen Valyria until my tongue grew numb.” A flicker touched the old man’s face, neither smile nor wince, but some quiet acknowledgment of the sting. 

   “I taught you discipline. You lacked it, at the time.”

   “And you, it seems, still overestimate your place.” The dragonlord’s amethyst gaze drifted over him with the slow disdain of a lord inspecting a servant’s mistake. “Did you imagine I summoned you to reminisce? To clasp hands like sentimental lowman reunited at a harvest feast?”

    Galiar Gonaellis straightened a fraction. “I imagined nothing, my lord. I came because you requested it.”

    “ 'Requested',” the younger man echoed softly, savoring the word. “A generous phrasing. I recall ordering your presence. I hadn’t thought to find you in Valyria at this time, thanks be to Nyessos for that fortune.”

     The man spoke with an unrelenting scowl on his wrinkled face. “If it weren’t for your crone of a mother who tracked me down by light of candle, I wouldn’t be here. So spare me your niceties and benedictions, lord dragon. Shining as it were from her very birth, Valyria still sores the sight of this old beggar but there is something in the games to look forward to.”

    Naherion held back a wince. It appeared that old Galiar still had his cutting tongue even when his former student had long been grown out of that boy he used to berate and teach, and into a dragonlord of Valyria with family of his own. The tension lingered like smoke above the table, but beneath it ran something subtler: the faintest glimmer of respect budding in the boys’ bright eyes, though buried deep under defiance.

    He strayed a look to his lord master, expecting a scalding to the affront of his stature and with the wide eyed look of aghast that the young masters mirrored, they were just as surprised when their father did not do much as to respond. He left that to his mother.

    Her crackled voice carrying the serene cruelty of a dragonblood well acquainted with power. “Tell me, Master Galiar, does humility chafe you? In those dusty years among scrolls and stones, did you ever envision that the boy whose knuckles you struck with a reed for mispronunciation would be named in high offices to the Freehold?”

    The old teacher met Lady Haera’s eyes without flinching. Naherion had to handle it to the man, he was brazen. “I expected he would rise high, yes.”

    “Oh?” Lord Ragaer’s lips curved in a thin smile. “Flattery from you tastes like spoiled wine, Galiar. But did you also expect that I would remember your lessons? All of them?” He leaned close, his breath soft and cold. “Se ñuhoso hen perzys qelbro dakogon isse iā dōrī mōris grevy.”

    The way of the flame rivers in a never ending reverse.

    Galiar Gonaellis bowed his head. “I taught you what I could. That you wield it as a blade rather than a guide is your choice.”

    The dragonlord replied smoothly. “You instructed me in learned arts of Valyria, prepared my intellect for what Nyessos had in store for my future, Galiar. For that, I grant you the courtesy of conferring the same strict education upon my sons.”

    The old man inhaled, spine stiffening. “You were not always so sharp of tongue, Ragaer. Once you–”

    “–once I was a boy sent to your tutelage by hard expectant father,” the Lord Vohgyreon cut in, stepping closer, his shadow pulling a veil of blackness over the sunlight upon the scholar. “Once I sat before you with parchment and quill, and you corrected me with tedious patience, treating me as though I were a hatchling too fragile to stand the heat.” He tilted his head. “For dragons are not bred for softness.”

    “Nor for cruelty,” Galiar said quietly.

    It was Lady Alystrea who laughed, soft and elegant. “Cruelty? Then you must not have met many dragons, good man. Should you like, I would make your acquaintance with my delightful Mendrion and see if you still call them so.”

    He turned away, dismissing him with a flick of his mantle. “Be grateful I grant you this audience at all. Many in my position would not trouble themselves to acknowledge an old man fading into dust. The boys will begin their lessons with you on the morrow, do much more of the same as you had with me for my sons have what bright a fate that even Nyessos shall avail them. My manservant will see that you are properly catered to and accommodated, but out of mine eyes.”

    Vaedar blurted out in desperation. “Father, one day’s reprieve? To ready ourselves, and to–”

    “No reprieve, young master.” Their new tutor cut off, turning to face the boy. “Valyria offers no reprieves, not even to one of your ilk, and neither does the world beyond. The morrow comes whether you are ready or not. You will learn, or you will fall.”

    The scrape of chair legs across flagstone marked the end of the morning meal. Lord Ragaer with the slow, deliberate ease of one long accustomed to others’ eyes upon him. Naherion, ever diligent to his lord mastee, was already at his side.

    They left the breakfast table behind, where Lady Alystrea and the lord’s mother still lingered, voices soft and mingled with the tittering laughter of the younger boys. The echoes followed them only so far, until the doors closed on the hall and they were in the narrower stone passages that wound toward the inner chambers of the great manse.